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Suggested Citation:"Executive Summary." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2012. Linking Community Visioning and Highway Capacity Planning. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14580.
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Suggested Citation:"Executive Summary." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2012. Linking Community Visioning and Highway Capacity Planning. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14580.
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Suggested Citation:"Executive Summary." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2012. Linking Community Visioning and Highway Capacity Planning. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14580.
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Suggested Citation:"Executive Summary." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2012. Linking Community Visioning and Highway Capacity Planning. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14580.
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Page 4
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Suggested Citation:"Executive Summary." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2012. Linking Community Visioning and Highway Capacity Planning. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14580.
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Page 5
Page 6
Suggested Citation:"Executive Summary." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2012. Linking Community Visioning and Highway Capacity Planning. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14580.
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1The second Strategic Highway Research Program (SHRP 2) Capacity area is working toward designing a transportation planning and project development decision-making framework that better integrates transportation decisions with social, economic, and environmental consider- ations. In the context of transportation planning, the practice of visioning has been employed by some agencies to enable decisions that are more integrated with related issues, more coordi- nated with partner agencies, and more closely connected to the values of a community. Vision- ing holds great potential to facilitate collaborative decision-making processes, and the SHRP 2 program has developed practical guidance for practitioners on the role of visioning and links to transportation planning. The cornerstone of current Capacity area research is the web-based product Transportation for Communities—Advancing Projects through Partnerships (TCAPP) (transportationfor communities.com). This effort produced an interactive Decision Guide to help practitioners through balanced, inclusive, and collaborative decision-making processes within the four initial phases of transportation planning: long-range transportation planning, corridor planning, pro- gramming, and environmental review and permitting. The objective of this project is to develop a supporting framework for visioning that enables broad, strategic outcomes of visioning to transfer readily to specific, focused planning and proj- ect processes included in the Decision Guide. This research is intended to advance the state of the practice of visioning in support of transportation planning. To that end, this technical report presents a model—the Vision Guide—that is a blueprint for preparing, creating, and implementing a visioning process. This structured, simplified process will better enable practitioners to engage in visioning in support of transportation planning. The Vision Guide also serves as the organizing framework for the research tasks incorporated within this project. A companion resource is the web-based, interactive version of the Vision Guide, which can be found on the project website, Transportation–Visioning for Communities (T-VIZ) (Cambridge Systematics, Inc. 2011). This practical website is designed for practitioners and is the best portal for accessing the information within the Vision Guide. Visioning and Transportation Planning Visions are planning and policy exercises that engage community stakeholders in building long- term, consensus frameworks for future decision making. The purpose of visioning is to create a shared base of understanding and generate policy direction for the future of a community. These Executive Summary

2processes commonly extend beyond conventional transportation planning horizons and are intended to address the confluence of social, economic, educational, environmental, develop- ment, and transportation issues. Visioning processes enable participants to reach a series of consensus decisions on a community’s present conditions and future trends, to agree on a desired future, and to develop a clear strategy for how to reach that desired future. The distin- guishing characteristics of this approach are: • Collaborative approaches to interdisciplinary topics; • Proactive, innovative, and interactive outreach techniques; • Focus on community context, livability, and values; • Emphasis on technical scenario development and analysis; and • Expansion of ownership in a process and implementation responsibility. Visions are significant sources of input for transportation planning processes, which now range well beyond topics of access and design to consider community goals and values and a host of interrelated issues. Visioning processes may help guide appropriate transportation decisions to enhance economic competitiveness, environmental stewardship, and community resources, while improving transportation outcomes. Visioning has been used in support of transportation decision making throughout the United States and is increasingly common in a variety of projects, plans, and processes. The process is recommended by federal agencies as a means of proactive and inclusive public involvement and has been embraced in statewide policy by several state departments of transportation for better connection of transportation and land use decisions. Visioning is practiced by many metro- politan planning organizations (MPOs) within ongoing planning efforts to facilitate regional coordination of local decisions. Visioning is increasingly employed by civic organizations and regional councils to establish broad regional policies which, in turn, inform the plans of trans- portation partners. Vision processes tend to produce high-level, policy-oriented outcomes that prove challenging to integrate within focused, project-specific transportation planning and development efforts. For example, the range of outcomes produced through visioning processes may include broad language on a community’s values and goals; specific objectives or principles to guide decision making; or detailed maps depicting anticipated land use patterns, critical resource areas, or future transportation corridors. These outcomes can be linked to the transportation planning and project development pro- cesses captured in the Decision Guide, including long-range transportation plans, corridor plan- ning, project programming, environmental review, or permitting processes. For example, vision statements may help shape the goals of a long-range transportation plan; maps of desired future conservation areas may provide input into the range of solutions considered in corridor plan- ning; or decision-making principles for future transportation systems may provide direct input into developing consensus on a draft transportation improvement plan. Applications of vision- ing in support of transportation planning have included all modes, from envisioning integrated air logistics centers, to seaport master plans, to conceptual designs for high-speed rail corridors. Visioning may suit any scale of planning effort, from broad, regional, long-range transportation plans, to urban transit corridor plans, to the design of local streetscapes. Visions may support a single project or provide a lasting foundation for subsequent plans, including the strategic plans of transportation agencies themselves. However, visioning in support of transportation planning has not been uniformly embraced by practitioners and remains an underutilized practice. This research seeks to identify core ele- ments of a visioning process and to establish relationships with transportation planning for use in future efforts.

3Organization of the Vision Guide All visioning processes are unique and reflect the community context in which they occur. However, there are common questions that provide meaning and structure to any visioning process: • Where are we now? • Where are we going? • Where do we want to be? • How will we get there? These themes form the basis of the Vision Guide, which presents a structured, simplified blueprint to enable practitioners to engage in visioning in support of transportation plan- ning. The Vision Guide includes three phases, 14 activity areas, 35 critical activities, and a wide variety of potential products, resources, and tools for the practitioner within an inter- active format. The Vision Guide (illustrated in Figure ES.1) is designed to be interactive and to enable a practitioner to navigate these process steps to access information readily. The guide is organized into three phases, with activity areas that describe the practitioner’s roles and responsibilities within critical activities. Also included are components covering four key topics, which provide Figure ES.1. The Vision Guide.

4a means for a practitioner to access information on these elements that run through all the phases and many activity areas. The following are the elements of the Vision Guide: • Phases help organize any process. The first phase (Preparing the Vision) includes initial orga- nizational and management activities. The second phase (Creating the Vision) focuses on the role of technical activities and stakeholder involvement in creating vision outcome. The third phase (Implementing the Vision) provides the framework for achieving and measuring prog- ress toward the vision. • Activity areas summarize the critical activities, organize key components, and communicate actions that occur within each phase. Activities are illustrated with high-level, strategic guidance and provide a number of example products and processes from prior visioning processes. • Components are key elements of a successful vision process, providing a framework for struc- turing the project’s major research tasks. Each component is linked directly to a set of relevant Activity Areas, highlighting relevant steps within the vision process. Each component is described in more detail in the following chapter. • Key decisions are transition points within any visioning process, representing critical mile- stones or junctures. Decisions are often opportunities to reach consensus on a vision outcome and may provide important linkages to other processes, plans, or procedures. These decisions provide a bridge to the key decision points outlined in the TCAPP Decision Guide. Vision Guide Components The components of the Vision Guide cover the primary focus areas of this research project and are intended to help practitioners apply these research findings within a visioning process. The four component areas are considering communities, reaching stakeholders, forming partner- ships, and tracking commitments. Within the T-VIZ project website, these components provide a filter through which to view the process and assess the activity areas relevant to each compo- nent topic. The practitioner may then drill down to access additional information, processes, tools, resources, and web links within these focal areas. Considering Communities Visioning offers communities the opportunity to express a desired future quality of life. Trans- portation is just one of many factors and variables that shape quality of life and community livability. The relationship between transportation decisions and community context is com- plex, and discussion is often limited to the impacts, costs, or benefits of improvements. In con- trast, visioning offers the opportunity to understand better how transportation systems may shape the preferred future of a community, whether through urban form, livability, or economic competitiveness. Understanding, measuring, and communicating these concepts of quality of life is an important aspect of a visioning process, which often employs innovative tools and techniques to measure existing community conditions, forecast likely conditions, and track progress toward a desired future based on shared goals and values. Research within the consider- ing communities component provides an organization framework to help the practitioner begin considering communities within a visioning process through the use of tools, techniques, and indicators that describe community context and quality of life. Reaching Stakeholders The reaching stakeholders component provides guidance to practitioners for selecting involve- ment tools and techniques to use in a visioning process. This research will assist practitioners in reviewing emerging best practices and in selecting appropriate outreach tools to develop a vision, reach nontraditional stakeholders, and leverage new technologies and resources. Visioning

5processes rely on innovative techniques to build public awareness and ownership in a process, help stakeholders make informed choices among alternative futures, and engage a wide variety of partners in vision development and implementation efforts. For this reason, public engagement is a hallmark of many visioning processes. As visions are used more widely in transportation planning, agencies and practitioners have access to an array of new tools and techniques to engage participants. New online technologies, scenario support tools, and creative and collab- orative methods are emerging to supplement tried-and-true techniques such as public work- shops and review periods. The online component guide provides details on managing outreach efforts in key activity areas, as well as a comprehensive listing of effective tools and techniques for stakeholder engagement from prior visioning processes. Forming Partnerships The forming partnerships component highlights key considerations in identifying, building, using and maintaining partnerships within relation to the relevant activity areas of the Vision Guide. The broad scope of a visioning effort often involves agencies and organizations repre- senting concerns well beyond the traditional roles of transportation planning and project authorities. This feature of visioning necessitates the formation of partnerships among public, private, and civic organizations, as well as partnerships among transportation and resource agencies, and within a transportation agency itself. Partnerships generally are developed to facilitate a visioning process, which involves creating new organizations, leveraging partner- ships among existing organizations, or expanding the responsibilities of an existing entity to serve as the convener of a vision. Partnerships may be formed for the purposes of developing decision-making authority; strategically involving stakeholders; guaranteeing financial or in-kind resources; providing a forum for stakeholders to cooperate; and establishing a structure for implementation efforts. A partnership brings together diverse groups to achieve a common goal—in this case, to develop a shared vision. Most often, these relationships are informal, and partners are bound by a shared commitment and common interest in a visioning process. Other times, these relationships may be formalized and bind partners through funding agree- ments or implementation responsibilities. Tracking Commitments The information in the tracking commitments component can help agencies leverage existing performance measurement and tracking systems to create a process that will provide periodic data on the status of a vision’s implementation and effectiveness. Implementation of a visioning process is as important as the development of the vision itself. A source of frustration for many communities is that stakeholders or the public often feel that, after exhaustive efforts to develop a shared vision, the implementing agencies proceed with a business-as-usual approach that trivializes the shared vision. There are a wide variety of reasons why a transportation agency may fail, either in appearance or in actuality, to honor community commitments. However, many agencies have existing systems that can be leveraged or expanded to create a commitment track- ing process that will support the vision goals of implementation. The Vision Guide provides a model commitment tracking process that is integrated within the phases and activity areas. Visioning in Support of the Collaborative Decision-Making Framework Visioning processes provide a framework for the identification, analysis, integration, and imple- mentation of community concerns, the needs of a transportation system, or the alternatives of a highway capacity project. The Vision Guide, developed using case studies, literature reviews, and other background research, supports a range of applications and provides outputs that

6transfer readily into related SHRP 2 Capacity research as presented in the TCAPP Decision Guide structure. Whether an agency is undertaking a long-range transportation plan, a corridor plan, or an environmental review process, the key decisions included in the Vision Guide can be applied to the collaborative decision-making processes. The TCAPP Decision Guide identifies key decisions in four phases of transportation decision making: long-range transportation planning, corridor planning, programming, and environ- mental review and permitting. This structure of key decisions common to all transportation agencies contains data to support an understanding of collaboration: why it is necessary, what is needed to support it, and how to make the changes necessary for a truly collaborative process. Each key decision provides information on how to implement collaboration fully. Visioning is a relevant and useful tool that lends itself easily to an agency’s collaborative decision-making process. A visioning process can establish necessary partnerships and stake- holder involvement, which can then translate into the processes defined in TCAPP. The Vision Guide process developed under this project exists outside of the TCAPP framework, and can be used independently. However, the two processes are readily integrated. Through further work with TCAPP’s interactive website and leveraging the application “Visioning and Transportation,” the integration of these two processes to provide specific data transfer and collaboration points could provide an invaluable tool to practitioners. It also may encourage those interested in visioning to adapt the TCAPP model for use in other transporta- tion processes, and illustrate the value of visioning to transportation practitioners pursuing a collaborative decision-making model. Tools and resources such as those developed through SHRP 2 will serve a critical role as transportation agencies, regional planning councils, civic groups, and others are tasked increasingly with coordinating around and planning within the complex interplay of social, economic, and environmental issues.

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TRB’s second Strategic Highway Research Program (SHRP 2) Report S2-C08-RR-1: Linking Community Visioning and Highway Capacity Planning explores community visioning efforts, identifies steps and activities that might be considered when engaging in visioning, and highlights the links between vision outcomes and transportation planning and project development processes.

The report also presents a model—the Vision Guide—that is a blueprint for preparing, creating, and implementing a visioning process. As part of the project that produced Report S2-C08-RR-1, a companion web tool was also developed. The web tool, Transportation—Visioning for Communities (T-VIZ), is the interactive version of the Vision Guide.

Appendixes to the report, which are available only in electronic format, are as follows:

• Appendix A: Case Study Summaries

• Appendix B: Considering Communities

• Appendix C: Stakeholder Outreach Resources

• Appendix D: Commitment Tracking

An e-book version of this report is available for purchase at Google, iTunes, and Amazon.

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