Federal transportation funds in the Topeka–Shawnee County area, and what MTPO compliance actually buys

The Metropolitan Topeka Planning Organization does not receive a block grant because it is certified. Certification is the gate. A road or transit project in this planning area cannot take federal highway or transit money unless it sits in a plan the MTPO has constrained and self-certified.

What the federal law requires

Two statutes impose the same duty. Highway planning is 23 U.S.C. § 134. Transit planning is 49 U.S.C. § 5303. An urbanized area of more than 50,000 people must have a designated metropolitan planning organization. Topeka crossed that line long ago. The designation agreement that named the Metropolitan Topeka Planning Organization was executed March 3, 2004, by the City of Topeka, the Kansas Department of Transportation, and the Topeka Metropolitan Transit Authority. The policy board adopted its bylaws on June 3, 2004.

The required process is what planners call the 3-C: continuing, cooperative, and comprehensive. The MPO, the state, and the transit operator do it together. The products are a metropolitan transportation plan of at least twenty years, and a transportation improvement program, the TIP, covering at least four years. A project seeking federal highway money under Title 23, or federal transit money under Chapter 53 of Title 49, has to be in the approved TIP. The regulation that turns those statutes into a checklist is 23 C.F.R. Part 450, Subpart C.

The compliance paper is the self-certification in 23 C.F.R. § 450.336. At least every four years, when the TIP goes up with the statewide program, the state and the MPO certify that the process meets the planning statutes, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, the transit nondiscrimination rule, the disadvantaged-business rule, equal-employment rules on federal-aid highway contracts, and the Americans with Disabilities Act together with Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. The Federal Highway Administration and the Federal Transit Administration then find that the TIP matches the long-range plan. That finding rests on the self-certification.

The harder federal review, the one that can hold back up to 20 percent of an area’s highway and transit funds, applies to a Transportation Management Area, an urbanized area over 200,000. Topeka is under that line. It self-certifies. It does not get the four-year federal certification review that Kansas City and Wichita get.

What the certified program shows

The current compliance document is the MTPO Transportation Improvement Program for federal fiscal years 2026 through 2029. On page 90 the board self-certifies that the process meets 23 C.F.R. Part 450, including fiscal constraint. These figures are programmed amounts in the Topeka planning area. They are not cash already received.

2026: roads and bridges $22.8 million, transit $11.2 million 2027: roads and bridges $8.6 million 2028: roads and bridges $304.7 million 2029: roads and bridges $19.2 million Four-year total: roads and bridges $355.2 million, transit $11.2 million

Source: MTPO Transportation Improvement Program, FFY 2026–2029, funding summary. Figures rounded.

The 2028 figure is one project year, not a new annual allotment. Take it out and the other three years of federal road and bridge work run from about $9 million to $23 million. Transit is lumped in 2026 in the programmed table. The same TIP lists Topeka Metro’s ordinary FTA formula grants at $3.2 million a year, $12.8 million over the four years. Those are Section 5307 urban formula funds, matched by the city mill levy and fares.

Two other numbers in the same document keep the federal share from being read as the whole transportation budget. After operations and maintenance are taken off the top, the TIP shows about $498 million available for road and bridge projects over four years and about $12.6 million left for transit projects. Most of the road money is local sales tax and state highway funds, not a federal check to the city. The city’s own capital table inside the TIP shows a much smaller direct federal line, on the order of $0.6 million to $2.4 million a year, plus a $30 million competitive-grant assumption in 2026.

What compliance does, and does not, do

A normal year is a few million dollars in transit formula money and somewhere around $10 million to $20 million in federal road money programmed through the TIP. A year with a large KDOT project inside the planning area can show a few hundred million, because that project cannot be authorized unless it sits in this certified program. The self-certification is what lets FHWA and FTA act on those projects. It is not a separate appropriation, and it is not a finding that the money was well spent.

The local papers that show the duty are the March 3, 2004 designation agreement, the June 3, 2004 bylaws, each TIP, and the self-certification statement filed with that TIP. The bylaws already say the chair signs the self-certification after the policy board approves it.

Henry McClure MCRE, LLC 3625 SW 29th Street #100, Topeka, Kansas 66614 785-383-9994