MPOAC is a statewide transportation planning and policy organization created by the Florida Legislature pursuant to Section 339.175(11), Florida Statutes. The organization is made up of a Governing Board (27 members) consisting of local elected officials from each of the MPOs.

The MPO for Tallahassee region is called the Capital Region Transportation Plannning Agency (CRTPA). Current members from Leon County include County Commissioners Kristen Dozier, John Dailey, and Nick Maddox and City Commissioners Scott Maddox, Curtis Richardson and Nancy Miller.

One of the purposes of the MPOAC is to develop legislative priorities that are supported by the MPO’s.

While voting to support the full slate of MPOAC recommended legislative priorities, officials singled out two priorities for special consideration and distanced themselves from another.

First, the CRTPA wanted to emphasize the need to tie local fuel taxes to the consumer price index as a way for local governments to collect more transportation revenues when the cost of goods increase.

And second, the CRTPA placed priority on state legislation that “regulates distracted driving as a primary offense by prohibiting the use of electronic wireless communications devices and other similar distracting devices while operating a moving motor vehicle.”

The MPOAC list of priorities also included a controversial provision which seeks legislation directing the Florida Department of Transportation to develop a plan and conduct one or more pilot tests to move Florida toward a Mileage Based User Fee, which protects individual privacy, in lieu of the traditional fuel tax.

Recognizing the controversy generated with support of this provision last year, see our report here, officials still voted for the priority but made an effort to distance themselves from the proposal.

City Commissioner Scott Maddox said that “just because we vote to support the full slate of priorities for a state organization does not mean we agree with all of them.”

The full list of MPOAC state legislative proposals can seen here.