Public involvement in transportation planning and design has a problematic history. This situation has arisen both because professionals lack access to a coherent, organized method for communicating with the public, and because some important principles of public involvement, known to community design professionals, are still being discovered by transportation professionals. This paper proposes a protocol named Structured Public Involvement (SPI), which is designed to ensure that public involvement is meaningful to the professional and the public. This paper sets forth principles of SPI and a details series of steps useful in engaging the general public in a complex design or planning problem.

SPI aims to be transparent, accountable, democratic, and efficient. SPI situates the use of technology within a public involvement framework built on community design experience. While technology, in the form of visualization tools, decision modeling, and computer-aided facilitation, can be useful, it must be placed in social context. That is, various technologies are employed for their ability to address problems in the public involvement process, such as lack of access to information, inconvenient and time-consuming meetings, confusing terms and graphics, and one-way communication. Highlights and examples are drawn from practical experience, where SPI protocols have been designed and used to solve problems of route planning, highway design and transit-oriented development. While each problem set called for a different mix of technical tools, the protocol within which those tools were used was the same, with similar encouraging results. Using SPI, public participation is less contentious and more informed and the professional has much higher quality information with which to begin the design process.

Public involvement in transportation planning and design has a problematic history. This situation has arisen both because professionals lack access to a coherent, organized method for communicating with the public, and because some important principles of public involvement, known to community design professionals, are still being discovered by transportation professionals. This paper proposes a protocol named Structured Public Involvement (SPI), which is designed to ensure that public involvement is meaningful to the professional and the public. This paper sets forth principles of SPI and a details series of steps useful in engaging the general public in a complex design or planning problem.

SPI aims to be transparent, accountable, democratic, and efficient. SPI situates the use of technology within a public involvement framework built on community design experience. While technology, in the form of visualization tools, decision modeling, and computer-aided facilitation, can be useful, it must be placed in social context. That is, various technologies are employed for their ability to address problems in the public involvement process, such as lack of access to information, inconvenient and time-consuming meetings, confusing terms and graphics, and one-way communication. Highlights and examples are drawn from practical experience, where SPI protocols have been designed and used to solve problems of route planning, highway design and transit-oriented development. While each problem set called for a different mix of technical tools, the protocol within which those tools were used was the same, with similar encouraging results. Using SPI, public participation is less contentious and more informed and the professional has much higher quality information with which to begin the design process.

Further Reading:

Structured Public Involvement: Problems and Prospects for Improvement