The seven projects described below are currently being funded with FY 2006 funds.

CNT / STPP Public Participation in Transportation Planning Project

• Sponsors:  Center for Neighborhood Technology and Surface Transportation Policy Partnership
• Description:  CNT and STPP are building on the success of their projects “Bridging the Gap: Improving Communication between Transportation Agencies and Communities” and STPP’s workshops “From the Margins to the Mainstream: Using the Federal Transportation Law to Meet the Mobility Needs of Your Community.” This project will include similar efforts designed to educate advocates on the public transportation process to better understand how and why specific decisions are made, and what role they have in the decision-making.  Activities will include a webinar on travel demand modeling, a workshop on linking land-use and transportation decisions, and a pilot focusing on issues like these in a specific project’s context.  A clearinghouse will be developed and will serve as a virtual library for the public and participants to help better understand the technical issues addressed in these activities.

Community Advocacy & Service Engagement (CASE) Project (PDF)

• Sponsor:  Central Florida Regional Transportation Authority ("LYNX")
• Description:  The CASE Project will develop, implement and validate the effectiveness of innovative public participation tools, strategies and grassroots coalition building efforts premised on inputs from 7,000 plus citizen opinions from the seven-county central Florida region.  The project is designed to mobilize diverse and broad-based community groups to identify key “public information deficits” and engage communities in dialogue on transportation and mobility.  Public Education Strategies will be developed to build awareness, visibility and support of long-term transportation options.  Self-guiding coalitions will be built to provide focus and advocacy on codependent relationships between transportation and community development so that citizens can be mobilized to support adequate dedicated funding for transit programs. A final document will be available providing an evaluation of the project and a complete assessment of the results.

Dots and Dashes: Game Playing For Long Range Consensus Building (PDF)

• Sponsor:  Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission
• Description:  The DVRPC recognizes the need to engage the public in a way that not only informs specific transportation projects, but also helps create an overall vision of access and mobility for the entire region. “Dots and Dashes: Game Playing for Long Range Consensus Building” proposes to employ an innovative method to engage a diverse audience to utilize transportation decision-making and negotiating skills within a broad, region-wide, multi-modal context.  The project introduces a method of public outreach which captures regional priorities, educates stakeholders regarding the tradeoffs required to compose a plan, and provides consensual input into the public transit planning process.  The result is a collaborative, consensus-building planning strategy to integrate into DVRPC’s current public participation process and can be used as a model for other areas with similar long-range planning challenges.  The outcome of each “game” is a map composed of transit investments arrived at by the group of gamers with a constrained budget.

Guide the Ride (PDF)

• Sponsor:  Mid-America Regional Council  (Kansas City)
• Description:  MARC, in partnership with the local transit agencies, the University of Kansas, the Regional Transit Alliance (a citizens transit advocacy group), and other community partners, wishes to fully engage and involve the public in crafting and reviewing transportation alternatives in a process called “Guide the Ride.” This process is a structured public engagement initiative focused on defining the region’s short- and long-range transportation objectives by producing specific citizen input and feedback to shape recommendations surrounding transit service conceptualization and delivery.  The project will generate a final report that captures the feedback received through this process and provides strategies and recommendations regarding the public’s preferences about regionally coordinated transit service. The report will also analyze the effectiveness and value of the public engagement activities, as measured by levels of involvement, content received, and costs associated with each activity.

Evaluating the Effectiveness of Widely Available 3-D Visualization Tools in Support of Public Participation

• Sponsors:  Parsons Brinckerhoff / Hunter College of City University of New York (CUNY)
• Description:  This project will research and evaluate how 3-D visualization tools support public involvement from the perspective of a variety of different planning phases of project development – anywhere from systems planning to project design and implementation. Specific areas of interest include how well the tool provides accurate information to facilitate informed judgments on the value of proposed solutions or alternatives, how well the outcomes of the public involvement support decision-making, how well different audiences respond to the tool, and which phases or types of projects represent the best environment for its use and application. This research will examine the tool’s use in a variety of planning contexts that could include regional long-range planning and visioning, multimodal corridor planning, as well as more specific project planning.  The outcomes of this project will provide research-proven direction for agencies on when and how to apply the tool in their own planning environments.

Educating Human Service Agencies on the Benefits of a Regional Transportation System

• Sponsor:  Tri-County Community Action Program, Inc. (Berlin, NH)
• Description:  This project will develop an educational program that teaches human service providers and the general public about transportation coordination. Due to the lack of access to vehicles and compressed service hours by some agencies, service and financial resources are very limited in most of the tri-county area.  The educational program being developed will teach the value and benefits that can be derived from coordination as well as encourage and promote participation.  The overall outcome will be public awareness, provider participation, and to some degree a sense of community ownership.  The project will produce the educational components to assist a transit agency on how to involve and work with a “grass roots” public advisory committee to educate and encourage human service agencies and others to participate in a regional transportation system.

Enhancing Public Participation in Regional Public Transportation Planning: Innovative Practices Survey, Knowledge Networks, and Incentives Model

• Sponsors:  Waterford Inc and Virginia Tech
• Description:  This project will examine “diversity” in public participation practices with an expansive view of the term, to ensure that all perspectives, all needs, in a region are included. Diversity will be considered from a range of perspectives including race; economic status; age; trip characteristics; industry, to include the investment sector; and experiential diversity.  Other segments of the population will also be considered including those that are not current users of transit, but who may users in the future, as well as persons who may not use transit at all but who are affected in other ways by an improved transit environment.  The outcome will focus on the role of metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) in effective management of public participation for transit purposes.  “Knowledge maps” will be developed for network-wide application of data, resulting in enhanced coordination and decision-making.  A model will also be created that eliminates disincentives and creates affirmative incentives for diverse participation.