What is the Wichita Falls MPO? It is the regional transportation planning organization responsible for working with local, state and federal governments, the private sector, and the region's citizens to plan coordinated transportation systems designed to move people, goods and services affordably, efficiently and safely throughout the MPO area. The function of the Wichita Falls MPO is to coordinate regional transportation planning between the State of Texas, Wichita County and the cities of Wichita Falls, Pleasant Valley and Lakeside City. The major goal of the Wichita Falls MPO is to bring about regional planning under one voice while providing the greatest transportation benefit for all. Other goals include: supporting economic vitality, making transportation safer, providing greater access to mobility options, protecting the environment while promoting energy conservation, improving connectivity of the current transportation system, and preserving existing transportation infrastructure.

The Wichita Falls MPO was established by the federal government to ensure that transportation decisions within the MPO area are performed in a continuing, comprehensive and cooperative process. The MPO is responsible for creating, developing and reviewing transportation plans, which include the long-range, 25-year Metropolitan Transportation Plan, the short-range, 3-year Transportation Improvement Program, the annual Unified Planning Work Program, travel models, thoroughfare plans, transit plans, and bicycle/pedestrian plans. All of these documents work together to identify transportation programs and funding alternatives.

The Wichita Falls MPO provides a forum for local input into the expenditure of federal highway and transit dollars. Citizens and stakeholders can come together and share ideas and information with the two main bodies that make up the MPO. The first body is the Technical Advisory Committee or TAC, which makes recommendations and reports directly to the second body, the Transportation Policy Committee or TPC. The Technical Advisory Committee is a combination of TxDOT and City planning professionals. The Transportation Policy Committee is responsible for all policy decisions made by the MPO and is comprised of local and city officials.

President Bush signed into law the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users, commonly called SAFETEA-LU, on August 10, 2005. SAFETEA-LU will provide funding for project construction, transit programs, and planning activities from 2005 to 2009. The Transportation Policy Committee approves the use of federal transportation funds within the Wichita Falls MPO area and operates under the SAFETEA-LU act.