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."
A broad range of effective communication, facilitation, leadership and structured listening skills are needed to assist transportation professionals to interact effectively with communities and to make appropriate project decisions.
Place Evaluation Techniques
Yogi Berra once said: "You can see a lot just by observing." Over the past 27 years, Project for Public Spaces, Inc. (PPS) has applied this idea to its work in making urban public spaces function more effectively for people. By spending time in an area, observing how people use it and asking the people who are there what they like or don't like, it is possible for just about anyone to experience first hand how a place functions. This knowledge then becomes an important tool in determining how specific places can be improved.
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Project for Public Spaces
Book
Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In
Getting to Yes offers a concise, step-by-step, proven strategy for coming to mutually acceptavle agreements in every sort of conflict-whether it involves parents and children, neighbors, bosses and employees, customers or corporations, tenants or diplomats.
-- Community Partnership Forum, Washington State DOT
Article / Paper / Report
NCHRP Document 69: Performance Measures for Context Sensitive Solutions - A Guidebook for State DOTs
Around the country, groups of stakeholders ranging from local elected officials to citizen activists and interest groups are working hand-in-hand with transportation agencies to create projects that incorporate community values and are safe, efficient, effective mechanisms for the movement of people and goods. Vital to the success of these efforts is a movement among state Departments of Transportation (DOTs) to strengthen holistic, collaborative and inter-disciplinary philosophies for governing the planning, design, construction, maintenance and operation of transportation infrastructure.
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Transportation Research Board (TRB)
Excerpt
Public Involvement: What the Public Wants "Some clear directions emerge ... from our citizen focus groups: ... people respond to being addressed personally and politely; it works to ... provide a forum where everyone is listened to and ... afforded a response; ... people want to be given a real chance to affect decisions that affect their lives; and finally, it is nice to not only be given a choice but to be given information to help make a reasoned decision ...
What is not so clear is when to involve people. more...
from
Hear Every Voice: A Guide to Public Involvement at Mn/DOT
