Fargo-Moorhead Metropolitan Council of Governments

The Fargo-Moorhead Metropolitan Council of Governments (Metro COG) is the Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) for the Fargo-Moorhead area. An MPO is a transportation policy-making organization made up of representatives from local government and transportation authorities. On October 17 and 18, 1961, at the North Dakota State Capitol Building, state and regional engineers, planners and administrators met to continue discussing the use of funds from the Urban Renewal Administration to complete planning studies in the state,in particular the Fargo, ND, and Moorhead, MN, urbanized area. By the end of the meeting a tentative outline had been created for a Fargo-Moorhead Transportation Study and procedures for organizing the effort had been agreed upon. Thus, the first multi-jurisdictional growth plan for the Fargo-Moorhead urbanized area had began. A year and a half (and dozens of meetings by various committees) later the first meeting of the Coordinating Committee for Fargo-Southwest Fargo-Moorhead-Dilworth Metropolitan Area Comprehensive Planning and Traffic Study was held on March 21, 1963. This was the first meeting of what would become todays Metro COG Policy Board. In the years to come the organization would see many changes. The organizations lengthy name has changed, though often ever so slightly, several times since 1963 to arrive at its current form: The Fargo-Moorhead Metropolitan Council of Governments, or Metro COG for short. Originally the Metro COG worked primarily with the Department of Housing and Urban Development (better know as HUD). Today Metro COG works with the Federal Highway Administration and the North Dakota and Minnesota Departments of Transportation to conduct planning efforts and to assist in obtaining the construction funds necessary to improve the quality of life in the metropolitan area.