This section provides an overview of CSS. What it is and how it can help to shape transportation projects around the country. Feel free to browse through the topics below or search for a particular page by entering a keyword in the search box below or clicking on "Advanced Search."
There are a variety of methods for identifying stakeholders and project partners. Identifying them in the preliminary scoping phase (scoping up-front) can bring many benefits to a CSS project.
Transportation professionals have special and critical knowledge about a potential project, but a number of other people - key stakeholders - also have a working knowledge, which can help both in deepening the professional's understanding of the challenges in these places, and in finding solutions to them.
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Identifying Stakeholders "The first step towards achieving meaningful and effective public involvement in project development involves identifying the individuals and groups likely to be affected by the project, those who have a "stake" in its outcome," those who could get the project stopped if they wanted to, and persons or organizations who could help fund additional complimentary and desirable improvements outside the project right of way." In other words people most likely to support the project or to oppose it more...
from
NCHRP Report 480: A Guide to Best Practices for Achieving Context Sensitive Solutions
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Team of Stakeholders "All stakeholders need to be empowered to make decisions for their organizations. Make sure that you are assembling a group that can function as peers with each other. And begin with a team of individuals who have the right amount of authority and decision making ability to move the project along." more...
from
Building Projects that Build Communities: Recommended Best Practices
Structured Public Involvement: Problems and Prospects for Improvement
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.
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Kentucky Transportation Center
Article / Paper / Report
State of the Practice: White Paper on Public Involvement
Public involvement is the process of two-way communication between citizen and
government by which transportation agencies and other officials give notice and
information to the public and use public input as a factor in decision making. In the past
decade a radical transformation has occurred in the way transportation decisions are made.
A new decision model has emerged and continues to be refined. The model assumes that
public input into the assessment of transportation needs and solutions is a key factor in
most transportation decision making.
Several factors have contributed to this change. Since the passage of the Intermodal
Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991 (ISTEA), there has been a federally
mandated emphasis on early, proactive, and sustained citizen input into transportation
decision making - with special outreach efforts targeted at traditionally underserved
populations. ISTEA's directive was reinforced by the passage of the Transportation Equity
Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21) near the end of the decade. States and localities have
developed protocols and guidelines to interpret these mandates. In widely varying ways,
they have transformed their transportation agencies and blended these mandates with local
customs and expectations.
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Transportation Research Board (TRB)
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Reaching Non-Traditional Stakeholders and Achieving Environmental Justice "In order to arrive at the optimal planning and project development decisions, it is important to involve as diverse a range of voices in the community as possible. By listening to affected communities, and understanding alternative viewpoints, the best decisions will be made. However, there are many challenges to meet in garnering diverse input..." more...
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Developing Public Involvement Plans "Certain Mn/DOT personnel are responsible for overseeing public involvement programs for specific projects, and for various types of transportation plans. For these people, developing public involvement plans is a critical task. The level of detail of the plan will depend on the magnitude and potential impacts of the project or plan. The following steps, excerpted from the National Transit Institute manual "Public Involvement in Transportation Decision Making," describe this process." more...
from
Hear Every Voice: A Guide to Public Involvement at Mn/DOT
"All stakeholders need to be empowered to make decisions for their organizations. Make sure that you are assembling a group that can function as peers with each other. And begin with a team of individuals who have the right amount of authority and decision making ability to move the project along."
