Knoxville TPO Executive Board adopts FY 2026–27 transportation planning work program

The Knoxville Regional Transportation Planning Organization Executive Board on June 23 adopted its FY 2026–27 Transportation Planning Work Program, the two-year, federally guided plan that sets the MPO’s staffing, data collection and study priorities beginning Oct. 1, 2025. The board approved the final draft by voice vote after staff described the program and budget.

The work program, often called the unified planning work program in federal guidance, organizes the MPO’s day-to-day program administration, data collection and modeling, short-range programming (the TIP), long-range planning and multimodal and special studies. Doug, a TPO staff presenter, told the board the draft had been reviewed by the Tennessee Department of Transportation and Federal Highway Administration with “a few minor corrections,” and that the plan must be adopted by Aug. 29 to meet federal review schedules. “We do need to go ahead and pass it today,” Doug said during the presentation.

The memo submitted by staff describes the document as a two-year program that begins Oct. 1, 2025, and follows federal fiscal-year scheduling and federal planning factors, including economic vitality, safety, accessibility and environmental considerations. The work program budgets roughly $8 million for the period, with about $6.7 million in federal funds; staff said the figure includes nearly $900,000 in locally flexible funds for pavement-management and corridor work and roughly $1 million in FTA funds that support transit program projects. Staff also described a $500,000 “special studies” bucket (an 85/15 federal/local split) for consultant-led planning studies and a $200,000 planning fund for complete-streets strategies.

Board members asked questions during the presentation about freight planning and private-sector data-sharing; Doug said freight planning must consider the whole system (truck, rail, barge) and noted prior difficulty obtaining private freight data, though MPO staff plan to scope options for a freight technical report or study. After discussion, a board member moved to approve the work program and a second was given. The motion was adopted by voice vote; no roll-call tally was recorded.

The board was informed the MPO will update a public outreach plan early in the work program, maintain performance-measure dashboards tied to the recently adopted mobility plan, continue and expand an extensive traffic-count program that archives decades of counts, pursue a substantial travel-demand-model update fed by a household-travel survey and work with member jurisdictions on ongoing TIP maintenance and delivery.

The decision means staff may begin tasks tied to the plan on Oct. 1, 2025, and to seek consultant contracts and grant opportunities identified in the budget. Staff emphasized the plan could be adjusted if federal reauthorization changes priorities during the two-year window.

The board did not identify any conditions on the adoption other than standard federal review and coordination steps; staff said any jurisdiction-specific project requests would continue to be handled through the TIP process and through subsequent project calls or amendments.

The MPO will post the final adopted work program online and share it with member jurisdictions and federal partners.

The meeting included no public comment on the work program.