The Legislature finds and declares:

1. (a) That the near-term programming and budgeting requirements of state and federal law is a cooperative intergovernmental planning process intended to determine the foreseeable capital and operational needs of a multimodal transportation system.
2. (b) That there is an absence of an adequate forum in which local officials may exercise leadership in multimodal transportation planning and programming.
3. (c) Therefore, it is in the public interest to define the roles of various public entities with respect to long-range system planning and short-range capital and service planning and programming processes.