Chittenden County MPO director outlines role, budget and projects for regional transportation planning

Charlie Baker, executive director of the Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission and MPO, told the House Transportation Committee on Feb. 12 that MPOs are federal creations required in urbanized areas and that Chittenden County’s MPO receives a larger share of federal transportation planning funds than other Vermont regions because it is the state’s single designated MPO.

Baker said MPOs are federally charged with a continuing, cooperative and comprehensive transportation planning process. That includes producing a long‑range Metropolitan Transportation Plan (20‑year horizon), a Transportation Improvement Program (the prioritized list of federally funded projects), a Unified Planning Work Program (the MPO’s annual planning tasks), and a public participation plan. He explained the MPO board must sign off on projects that use federal transportation dollars in the MPO urbanized area and that the MPO’s Transportation Improvement Program is updated frequently to reflect changing project costs and schedules.

Baker provided a fiscal overview: the MPO’s total program budget exceeds $10 million on paper (reflecting large federal grants and pass‑throughs), with roughly $7.3 million in transportation funding cited in the work program chart shown to the committee. He said about 95% of revenue comes from federal and state grants and about 5% from municipal dues; municipal dues in the region total more than a quarter million dollars and are scaled by towns’ equalized grand list.

He listed partner awards and pass‑throughs the MPO administers, including increased annual funding to Green Mountain Transit (about $650,000), grants to Locomotion and other regional mobility partners, and periodic reimbursements to the University of Vermont’s Transportation Research Center. Baker said the MPO also secured a federal competitive (RAISE/BUILD) grant of roughly $1 million that appears in the program listing; that discretionary grant’s status depends on federal administration decisions.

Project examples Baker reviewed included a long‑range study of I‑89 through Chittenden County (evaluating future interchange and capacity needs, including Exit 13/14 options), scoping for Exit 14 improvements, a Winooski River bridge replacement and related active‑transportation improvements (a project for which the MPO sought a $25 million discretionary grant), local main‑street and “complete streets” studies, EV charging and energy planning, culvert and stormwater inventories to support resiliency, and a regional transit‑oriented development (TOD) planning effort across multiple neighboring towns.

Baker said most MPO work is done by consultants (planning, inventories, technical studies) and that the MPO leverages local matches so towns can fund studies; VTrans typically provides a 10% match for core planning tasks while municipalities provide another 10% when required. He described the MPO as a public‑sector planning partner that lacks general tax revenue and relies on state and federal funding to provide technical assistance to towns.

Committee members asked about the risk to federal funds; Baker said formula funds coming through VTrans are not currently at risk but discretionary grants (like the RAISE/BUILD program) could be affected by federal policy changes. Members also discussed how MPO planning and resiliency work can help smaller, non‑MPO towns identify and prioritize culvert and flood‑resilience projects and coordinate hazard mitigation funding.

Baker concluded by noting MPO projects range from high‑level strategies to detailed scoping that prepares a project for VTrans engineering and NEPA processes; the MPO’s role is to coordinate local priorities into funding‑ready studies and regional plans.