The Flint Hills Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) is the designated entity to provide regional transportation planning and programming services across portions of Geary, Pottawatomie, and Riley Counties.
 

At both the local and regional scale, the MPO places special emphasis on providing equal access to a variety of transportation modes; including, transit, bicycling, walking, vehicles, and freight.

 

The Flint Hills MPO (designated February 2013 by the Designation Agreement) was the first MPO designated by the State of Kansas in over three decades.  Federal law requires any Urbanized Area population exceeding 50,000 persons to create a Metropolitan Planning Organization to carry out the multi-modal transportation planning for the metropolitan area.  The Manhattan Urbanized Area exceeded this population threshold in the 2010 Census.

 

In 2017, the Policy Board voted to expand the MPO boundary to include the City of Wamego and more of Pottawatomie County along the US-24 corridor. The boundary expansion took effect January 1, 2018.  

 

The MPO is governed by a Policy Board made up of local elected officials from the jurisdictions in the metropolitan area and a representative from the Kansas Department of Transportation (KDOT). The Policy Board is supported by a Technical Advisory Committee (TAC), consisting of staff level representatives from various local, state, and federal agencies.