Planning for Unplanned Pork

Abstract

Congressional earmarks can fund projects irrespective of carefully crafted metropolitan plans, potentially undermining years of analysis and negotiation. Yet, while earmarking of federal transport funds expanded significantly around the turn of the century, the planning literature has not considered whether or how this affected regionally scaled planning. To address that gap, this study examines how congressional earmarking and metropolitan planning interact, especially as competing paths for transportation investments. By analyzing transportation spending bills, other archival materials and conducting original interviews with federal, state and local agencies, transport policy organizations, and lobbyists, this article uncovers several unforeseen planning, financial, and administrative challenges associated with congressional earmarks. Second, it reveals how metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) manage such earmarks post hoc, creatively improving earmarking outcomes and strengthening planning in the process. These findings underscore the pivotal role of federal policies that institutionalize regional planning and that can enable flexible and assertive MPO responses. To successfully shape congressional intervention in regional investment programs and outcomes, planners and officials involved in metropolitan transportation must be sharply attuned to the politics of earmarking in addition to being exceptionally knowledgeable about the formal and informal rules that govern regional planning. With this dual awareness, of politics and process, they stand to more effectively influence congressional actions, enhancing their planning functions even when subject to uncertainty and conflict.