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Kristen Z, Transportation Planner

[<2 Minute Read]

At its core, the transportation planning process is a PROCESS. It is a process that strives to delicately and appropriately combine three inputs:

1. Data
2. Public and Stakeholder Will
3. Political Forces

State Departments of Transportation (DOT), Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs), Councils of Governments (COGs), and Regional Council (RC) planners and administrators are charged with combining these three inputs into a transportation improvement program that must be carried out. The outcomes are then presented to the decision-makers – usually their own Board of Directors.

The decision-makers care about the outcomes and need to be assured that a process is in place. Meanwhile, transportation planners must focus on the nuances and mechanics of the process. (Politically savvy planners often have the known political factions in mind when developing and executing the process). Some folks call it, “making sausage”.

While the three components are necessary for all transportation improvement programs (data, public + stakeholder will, and political forces) – finding the “right” proportions is the trick, and often varies. Some organizations manage to balance all three while some emphasize one or two components over the others. The following are questions that agencies should consider when analyzing the three components in their transportation planning process:

1. Data

• Is summary data available about existing infrastructure, travel patterns / preferences, costs, and trade-offs?
• Are the costs and benefits of the projects in the current transportation plan or (state) transportation improvement program (TIP) well understood?
• Are performance measures in place and linked to the likely outcomes of potential transportation infrastructure projects, programs, and strategies?

2. Public + Stakeholder Will

• Has there been a large show of support (or opposition) from the public over the proposed projects?
• What mix and relative proportion of modes are valued among highways, arterials, transit, bike / ped, planning studies, and data or outreach activities?
• What means are used to obtain regionally representative inputs?

3. Political Forces

• How are engrained values incorporated into the process?
• What types of projects or benefits are popular among the decision-makers?
• Has geographic equity been incorporated into the process?
• Have decision-makers had a chance to guide the process development and vote on key milestones along the way?

After all is said and done, what are some tangible things we can point to as evidence that we carried out a “good” transportation planning process? We asked a professional planner for her take!

Q: What do you consider evidence of a good transportation planning process?

Shelby Powell, Deputy Director – North Carolina Capital Area MPO (CAMPO)

A planning process has been successful if the result is a plan that is implementable. In order to be considered implementable, a plan must have:

1. Broad community support (evidence of a meaningful public engagement process)
2. Financial feasibility (the outcome is a recommendation for a specific project or a set of projects that have applicability to specific funding sources)
3. Technical merit (recommendations are grounded in proper analysis that shows feasibility for putting the recommendations in place on the ground)

A prior supervisor once told me: ‘if you don’t have a plan to pay for it, then you don’t have a plan!’. While knowing how you will pay for implementation is important, I think the other two elements I mentioned are equally important – why would you pay to implement something that the community does not support or is not well-thought-out enough to be able to build? A planning process must consider all of these in order to be truly successful.

What do you consider evidence of a good transportation planning process? As we ring in the new year, we challenge you to consider how your organization can make its transportation improvement program even better!

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[<2 Minute Read]

Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) in collaboration with their member jurisdictions make decisions on how to best invest federal, state, and local taxes into the regional transportation system.  They strive to make improvements in safety, modernize the system, enable accessibility to more people, contribute to larger societal goals, and expand the system strategically.  MPOs plan, program, and fund all sorts of projects, from reconstructing highway interchanges and arterial corridors, to replacing public transit buses and building new bike/ped facilities, all for the sake of progressing towards the MPO’s established transportation goals.

As part of this overall decision-making process, MPOs strive to ensure that the concerns and issues of all those with a stake in transportation decision-making are identified and addressed.  MPOs engage the general public and stakeholders under the broad heading of “Public Engagement”. 

So, how do we measure success? How do we know when we’ve done a “good job” engaging the public?

It depends. It depends on what our goals are. Here are some goals for your consideration. 

Inform

Inform the public to the maximum extent possible of available resources as well as opportunities to participate in the transportation decision-making process and planning initiatives. Some useful questions to ask:

• Do we regularly share relevant information with committee members, member jurisdictions, and the public?
• Is our website up to date?
• Do we have a relationship with the local media?
• Do we have a Citizens’ Academy (or equivalent) to provide opportunities for the public to learn about the transportation planning process?

Involve

Involve the public early and often in the transportation planning process by asking:

• Do we offer opportunities for diverse representation on committees?
• Do we offer regular, on-site updates with the governing bodies of member jurisdictions?
• Did we consider public input as a project selection criterion?

Coordinate

Proactively develop relationships with other organizations within the planning area to increase the opportunity for their participation in transportation planning. This could mean answering the following:

• Do we share documents and involvement opportunities with local and regional planning departments and community organizations?
• Do we participate in other regional initiatives?

Improve

Continually identify and implement ways to improve the public participation processes, and honestly ask:

• Do we set aside time to catch up on the best practices?
• Do we de-brief with our team after public engagement campaigns to discuss lessons learned?
• Do we ask our stakeholders to share their experiences (good and bad) with our organization?
• Do we set aside a budget for cost effective tools that can help us accomplish our public engagement goals?

Earning, respecting, and maintaining the public’s trust is perhaps the most important jobs MPOs do.  We take that job seriously and are working to improve how our ProjectTracker tool can help you achieve your public engagement goals.  We’d love to hear from you on how we can best do that.  You can reach us at [email protected].

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