Joel EngelhardtPalm Beach Transportation Planning Agency shifts back to Metropolitan Planning Organization as it nears 50th anniversary.
In a bureaucratic world laced with mind-numbing acronyms — FHWA, FTA, FDOT, AMPO, MPOAC to name a few — the Palm Beach Transportation Planning Agency is giving up on TPA and returning to its original moniker, MPO.
The Palm Beach Metropolitan Planning Organization is the name the agency started with in 1977, but in 2017, when it prepared to celebrate its 40th anniversary, it distinguished itself with a new name, Palm Beach Transportation Planning Agency.
Now, in preparation for its 50th anniversary, it is changing back.
In the alphabet soup that dominates the agency’s reports, it’s going from MPO to TPA to MPO again.
Since MPOs are a federal creation, required across the country for areas with more than 50,000 people, the TPA never really relinquished its old MPO name, Executive Director Valerie Neilson explained Thursday to the TPA board of 21 elected officials from throughout the county.
The agency that prioritizes hundreds of millions of dollars worth of road and transportation projects every year has been living under two names, one for official state and federal business, the other for its public-facing activities.
Only one other MPO in the state, the one serving Leon and surrounding counties, goes by TPA. But the name here caused confusion with the public, even drawing calls to the agency from people looking for travel agents or to get a driver’s license, Neilson said.
Move will be gradual
It won’t cost much to make the change, Neilson told the board.
The agency headquartered in downtown West Palm Beach still owns its old MPO internet domain name, PalmBeachMPO.org. A simple redirect from PalmBeachTPA.org will bring it back to life.
Business cards will be refreshed gradually.
“It would be changing two words in our signs in our name,” she told the board. The cost of a few thousand dollars would be covered easily by the building maintenance budget.
Lake Worth Beach City Commissioner Chris McVoy said he had become attached to the old name.
“I thought it was OK that we were a little different than the other ones. It didn’t seem there was much harm to it,” he said, before agreeing to get behind the proposal.
Board Chairperson Chelsea Reed, a Palm Beach Gardens council member, said she had been talking about the name change with Neilson for a couple of years.
The move assures clarity and consistency, she said.
“Our job is to make sure the public is informed,” Reed said. “Anything that sort of isn’t the same and consistent does sort of stick out. And we don’t need to.”
The proposal passed unanimously.
And, in case you were wondering, here’s what the acronyms at the top stand for:
- FHWA: Federal Highway Administration.
- FTA: Federal Transit Administration.
- FDOT: Florida Department of Transportation.
- AMPO: Association of Metropolitan Planning Organizations.
- MPOAC: Florida Metropolitan Planning Organization Advisory Council.
Joel is a founder, reporter and editor at Stet News. His award-winning newspaper career spanned more than 40 years, including 28 years at The Palm Beach Post, which he left in 2020. Joel lives with his wife in Palm Beach Gardens. He volunteers on the board of NAMI Palm Beach County and the Palm Beach Gardens Historical Society.
