The Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission (DVRPC) is the federally designated Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) for the Greater Philadelphia region. For more than 60 years, DVRPC has convened partners across the region to improve mobility, protect and preserve natural resources, and create healthy communities that foster greater opportunities for all. We serve Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery, and Philadelphia counties in Pennsylvania, and Burlington, Camden, Gloucester, and Mercer counties in New Jersey.
Mission
As the MPO for Greater Philadelphia, DVRPC builds consensus for a shared regional vision; enables data-based, community-centered solutions; and helps put plans into action.
Vision
A Greater Philadelphia region that provides:
- A safe, modern, multimodal transportation network for all
- An innovative and connected economy with opportunity and shared prosperity
- Healthy, walkable, and vibrant communities
- A preserved and restored natural environment with thriving ecological systems
- Clean, reliable, and affordable infrastructure and utility services resilient to the effects of extreme weather
Who We Are
History
Pennsylvania and New Jersey first recognized the need to look at transportation regionally and across state boundaries in the 1950s, consistent with transportation trends across the country. In 1959, the states established the Penn Jersey Transportation Study and set the foundation for regional planning for Greater Philadelphia. Following the 1962 Federal-Aid Highway Act, which established the “continuing, comprehensive, coordinated” transportation planning process, the two states came together again to establish DVRPC to meet this requirement. DVRPC was formed by an Interstate Compact through legislation passed by the Pennsylvania Legislature in 1965, as reenacted and amended in Act 43 of 1967 [3.0 MB pdf], and by the New Jersey Legislature in a series of conforming acts passed between 1966 and 1974. Since then, DVRPC has been responsible for carrying out continuing, comprehensive, coordinated transportation and regional planning between the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the State of New Jersey.
DVRPC has seen a lot of changes over the last six decades as attitudes and approaches to transportation planning have evolved. While earlier work of the organization focused on expanding roadway networks and building interstate highways, today, the shared regional transportation priorities focus on maintaining our existing transportation assets, improving roadway safety, and reducing crash-related fatalities, and addressing congestion bottlenecks in a coordinated, multimodal, data-driven congestion management process that promotes transit, pedestrian, and bicycle-related strategies.
DVRPC also continues to engage in a breadth of regional planning topics. In 2022, DVRPC received Economic Development District (EDD) status from the U.S. Economic Development Administration to facilitate the Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy (CEDS) and connect transportation, economic development, and land use. To help confront the region’s housing affordability crisis, in 2024, DVRPC created the Housing Submarkets tool to help establish a common understanding of complex housing issues in support of municipal actions.
Since 2009, DVRPC has been working to build out The Circuit, a planned 800 mile network of off-street bicycle and pedestrian trails with over 400 miles of the network in place today. Achieving our regional goals would not be possible without a robust transit system, which DVRPC supports through data and analysis, transit fund programming, and regional partner convenings. These are just a few of the ways that 60 years later, DVRPC continues to benefit the whole region through a holistic, data-driven, regional approach to supporting our 350 communities.
Bylaws
Information about the composition of DVRPC's Board, rules, procedures for holding meetings, and other governance matters can be found in DVRPC's Bylaws, last amended in April 2017.
Federal Certification
Every four years, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and Federal Transit Administration (FTA) conduct a review of DVRPC's transportation planning process to determine if the process meets the federal planning requirements. The most recent review was in October 2022, and the final report was issued in February 2023. The review concluded that DVRPC’s planning process conducted for the region complies with the spirit and intent of federal metropolitan transportation planning laws and regulations.
Long-Range Plan
Update: Connections 2050 Plan for Greater Philadelphia plans for the orderly growth and development of the region and considers future population growth, economic trends, environmental concerns, and technological advancements to guide investments in roads, public transit, biking and walking infrastructure, and other transportation modes. Developed with regional stakeholders, including the public, the Plan sets a 2050 vision for the region, establishes goals in support of the vision, and lays out strategies to achieve those goals.
Learn More About Update: Connections 2050Unified Planning Work Program
The Unified Planning Work Program outlines all of the federally funded transportation and regional and local planning projects administered by DVRPC for the nine-county region in a given year.
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