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Linking Community Visioning and Highway Capacity Planning (2012)

Chapter: Chapter 2 The Visioning Process

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Suggested Citation:"Chapter 2 The Visioning Process." 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:"Chapter 2 The Visioning Process." 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:"Chapter 2 The Visioning Process." 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 13
Suggested Citation:"Chapter 2 The Visioning Process." 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.
×
Page 13
Page 14
Suggested Citation:"Chapter 2 The Visioning Process." 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.
×
Page 14
Page 15
Suggested Citation:"Chapter 2 The Visioning Process." 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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10 C H A P T E R 2 Introduction Visioning processes are planning and policy exercises that engage community stakeholders in building long-term, con- sensus 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 processes commonly extend beyond conventional transportation planning horizons and are intended to address the confluence of social, economic, educational, environ- mental, development, and transportation issues. The visioning process addresses four central questions: • Where are we now? • Where are we going? • Where do we want to be? • How do we get there? These questions effectively capture the basic principle of visioning, which is to complete a shared learning process to determine collectively a community’s future. Visioning processes are designed to enable participants to reach a series of consensus decisions on a community’s current conditions and future trends, to agree upon a desired future or futures, and to develop a clear strategy for how to reach that desired future. The following are distinguishing characteristics of this approach: • Proactive, innovative, and interactive public outreach tech- niques and stakeholder engagement; • Focus on community context, livability, and values; • Emphasis on technical development of alternative scenarios, both collaborative and interdisciplinary approaches; and • Expansion of ownership of the process and responsibility for implementation from elected officials, agencies, orga- nizations, and residents. Planning processes for large-scale projects have grown more involved as community issues increasingly require regional approaches and as the number of governmental entities, private actors, and community groups involved in decision making has grown. As a result, visioning has emerged as a strategic approach to planning that seeks to develop consen- sus among a broad range of stakeholders on a wide range of issues. The role and application of visioning may be viewed from several perspectives, especially with regard to the relationship with existing, concurrent, or future transportation planning processes. Some practitioners view visioning as simply an interesting or innovative means to help facilitate public involve- ment in the development of a particular project or plan. An example is using visualization software or interactive games in long-range transportation plan development efforts. Other interpretations are broader, viewing prior visions as important foundations helping to establish the scope and direction of future transportation planning processes. An example is a regional visioning effort whose final outcomes direct the initial scope and emphasis areas of a long-range transportation plan. Visioning has been successfully applied in both contexts; however, this project attempts to broaden the definition of visioning beyond imaginative scenario planning and creative public involvement techniques to also capture the critical preparation and implementation processes that help transform a vision from an alternative into a reality. The Evolution of Visioning The idea of anticipating a desired future and building infra- structure and orienting policies to support that vision also has a long history in the United States. Long-term, strategic plan- ning has been practiced as long as community and transporta- tion planning has existed as a discipline. Scenario planning The Visioning Process

11 has well-established roots in business and military strategic processes, whereas intensive public involvement emerged more recently in context-sensitive solutions (CSS) practices. The large-scale transformation of communities in the United States, beginning in the nineteenth century, was closely tied to abstract visions for what each city could be and what physical form it could take. This was motivated by an aesthetic philoso- phy emphasizing grand public works projects and a sense of unity to the built environment, which reached its height during the City Beautiful movement. The realization of these vision-based plans would involve dramatic changes to the built environment well beyond the scale of the way many cities had traditionally developed. Notable early examples of vision-driven planning efforts include the 1909 Daniel Burnham Plan for Chicago (Grossman et al. 2004), the Regional Planning Association of America’s conceptual plans for the Appalachian Trail (Seltzer 2000), and the municipal plans developed throughout the United States by John Nolen (Hancock 1994). These efforts were conceived with the objective of urban reform and thus had the public benefit in mind, but they did not incorporate public input in their conceptual development (Schlereth 1994). Grand city planning fell out of practice by the middle twen- tieth century, primarily in response to the sudden increase in demand for housing and rapid development of infrastructure to accommodate a growing suburban population. Planning began to emphasize analytical methods and technical expertise, although these were still practiced without public input. In the later decades of the twentieth century, public involvement began to reclaim a place in planning discussions, largely owing to impacts on communities resulting from large-scale infra- structure projects such as the Interstate Highway System. The renewal of public involvement in the planning process originated with a focus on advocacy for traditionally under- represented communities, and eventually evolved into a general articulation of the need for cooperation and consensus build- ing among planners, stakeholders, local officials, and the general public. In the twenty-first century, regional visioning emerged to address issues such as air pollution, climate change, congestion, development patterns, and economic competitiveness that necessitate collaborative, regional approaches. Regional visions often emerge in areas in which governmental structures are fragmented, localized, or too inflexible to respond to prob- lems of the future. Community visions, too, are increasingly eclipsing traditional planning horizons in favor of long-term, broad views of the future. The evolution of planning philosophies and practices has led to visioning, which combines best practices from strategic scenario planning with public involvement techniques. These modern efforts began to emerge in the 1980s in the form of community organizations such as Chattanooga Vision, which set out an ambitious plan for downtown redevelopment with the horizon year of 2000. Other pioneering community visioning efforts appeared in the early 1990s, such as the Oregon Visions Project, which set a long-term vision for the community of Bend. Today’s popular form of interactive scenario-based visioning was made so by organizations such as Envision Utah and the involvement of urban design con- sultants specializing in technical scenario planning. Recently, state-sponsored efforts to use visioning as a catalyst for regional cooperation and developing integrated approaches to transportation and land use, have emerged in Florida and California. Visioning processes are now occurring in urban communities as wide ranging as Baltimore, Portland, and Chicago, and in rural communities such as Taylor County, Florida, and Routt County, Colorado. Comprehensive regional visions have emerged in the diverse areas of Central Texas, Southern California, and Upstate New York to address issues of regional cooperation, environment, land use, and eco- nomic development, among other considerations. Although the application of visioning to transportation processes is relatively recent, it is emerging as a best practice for commu- nities and agencies. Visioning and Transportation Visioning in transportation planning and decision making has become increasingly common since the adoption of ISTEA. Federal recommendations to practice visioning as a means of proactive and inclusionary public involvement have been embraced and enhanced by a variety of organizations and research centers, state departments of transportation, metro- politan planning organizations, and regional planning councils. The result has been the increasing application of visioning to a variety of projects, plans, issues, and communities; however, the broader role of visioning in transportation remains under- developed. Vision processes tend to produce high-level, policy-oriented outcomes that prove challenging to integrate with focused, project-specific transportation planning and development efforts. For example, the range of outcomes produced through visioning processes may include broad language on a com- munity’s values and goals; specific objectives and principles to guide decision making; or detailed maps depicting anticipated land use patterns, critical resource areas, or future transpor- tation corridors. These outcomes can be linked throughout the stages of transportation planning and project development processes, including long-range transportation plans, corridor planning, 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

12 of solutions considered in corridor planning; or decision- making principles for future transportation systems may provide direct input into developing consensus on a draft transportation improvement plan. Applications of visioning in support of transportation planning have included all modes, from the development of integrated centers to seaport master plans to high-speed passenger rail corridors. Visioning also 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 foundation for many subsequent plans, including the strategic plans of transportation agencies themselves. However, in the United States, visioning in support of transportation planning has not been uniformly embraced by practitioners and remains an underdeveloped concept and underutilized practice. This research seeks to identify core elements of a visioning process and to establish relationships to transportation planning to be used in future efforts. Visioning in Practice To better understand how visioning processes have been applied in transportation planning, this project reviewed selected national examples of visioning processes, studying the scope and scale of the process, partners and public involved, community context considered, commitments made, and implementation activities. Lessons learned and key success factors were developed based on a synthesis of these examples and offer conclusions addressed in this project and questions for further research. This section outlines the process for screening and select- ing 20 case studies for documentation. The case studies illustrate the breadth of practice of visioning processes with trans portation as a key element of planning. Some examples focus on specific highway projects, others on regional trans- portation plans; others represent comprehensive planning efforts encompassing transportation and other planning dimensions. Brief summaries of the 20 case studies appear in Table 2.1, and complete summaries appear in Appendix A (online only). The subsequent tasks of this project relied on the selection of example visioning processes and the information developed to understand more fully the use of visioning as related to transportation planning. The research effort was initiated with a set of five major typology filters to ensure that the examples selected covered a range of visioning processes: • Geographic scale is a key dimension of any visioning process and informs nearly every other aspect of an effort. Vision- ing processes may take place at a project, neighborhood, community, regional, or multistate level. The complexity of the vision’s organizational structure may depend on the number of public agencies, institutional partners, and community stakeholders involved. Public involvement tools and techniques, and technical scenario modeling or illustrating approaches also must be scaled to reflect the geographic area. • Community context influences the focus of a vision as well as the challenges and solutions to the issues presented. Addressing an issue such as the future of the transporta- tion system may be common to many visioning processes, although the solutions offered depend on the vision’s rural, urban, or suburban context. Expanding transit options is a recurring outcome of many metropolitan visioning pro- cesses, as is improving bicycle and pedestrian accessibility in suburban-oriented contexts, but these solutions may not be appropriate in rural areas with a need for increased highway capacity. • Topical scope is important as visioning processes become increasingly expansive and comprehensive in their outlook. Traditionally, many visions focused on the location and patterns of future transportation networks or land develop- ment patterns; however, visioning processes are increasingly addressing the full breadth of interrelated systems, including economic development, housing, public health and safety, education, environment, and community resources. • Level of effort involved in developing the vision is a key dimension that varies widely but provides significant lessons learned for future processes. A visioning process is often scoped according to the availability of financial and staff resources. As such, a large range of public involvement techniques and tools have been developed to adapt to any given process, from large-scale, technically complex efforts, to simple but effective visualization and scenario planning games, to innovative public input provided by city planning professionals hosting walking community audits. • Ownership of the process and of related planning efforts refers to the agency or agencies that assume responsibility for coordinating implementation and tracking commit- ments. Although visioning processes are used to develop guidance for a public project or planning effort, the pro- cesses themselves are not always initiated or managed by public agencies. For example, a regional vision effort may be led by a private organization but maintain strong ties to the agencies responsible for transportation planning and program development. Selection Methodology To develop a representative cross section of case studies, the research team sampled a broad list of potential candidates, conducted a systematic review, and selected 20 studies for in-depth research.

13 Table 2.1. Examples of Visioning Processes Selected for Further Study Visioning Process Description Envision Utah and Wasatch Choices 2040 In partnership with public and private partners Envision Utah developed a vision to address quality growth and is commonly considered a model for civic engagement. A related regional effort created a vision with guiding principles that were adopted into long-range transportation plans in the Greater Wasatch Valley, Utah. Envision Missoula Convened by the Missoula Metropolitan Planning Organization, this visioning process developed alternative land use and transportation priorities for the region to use within a larger update to the long-range transportation plan (LRTP) for Missoula County, Montana. Bluegrass Tomorrow Bluegrass Tomorrow, a Central Kentucky civic organization, was formed to advance regional coordination and has sustained visioning efforts addressing quality of life and economic vitality in the region for more than a decade. Transportation Outlook 2040 The Mid-America Regional Council leveraged a required long-range plan update to convene a broad visioning process that resulted in a vision that addresses the role of transportation in the region’s future. Vision Metcalf As part of urban revitalization efforts, the City of Overland Park, Kansas, used community visioning with extensive visualization exercises to develop a vision, including transportation alternatives and design concepts, for the Metcalf Avenue urban corridor. 2040 Vision for the I-95 Corridor Coalition The 2040 Vision initiative was a departure from the organization’s historic role of focusing on short-term operational improvements for the I-95 corridor. To address long-term issues and to provide members with a guiding framework for the future, the coalition embarked on a strategic visioning process. Oregon Transportation Vision Committee Initiated by the governor to address long-term transportation challenges and to shape near-term transportation legislation, the Vision Committee was an effort to develop consensus among public representatives and private leaders on future transportation priorities and funding approaches. I-90 Snoqualmie Pass East Project The Washington Department of Transportation led an innovative public involvement approach to solicit community preferences and develop preferred solutions for improvements within the I-90 corridor. Resulting projects will improve the safety and reliability of the corridor while restoring and preserving delicate ecosystems within the Central Cascades. Vision for Route 50 Scenic Byway The Route 50 Corridor Coalition organized community opposition to a proposed capacity project and advanced community interests by developing a vision and preferred alternative for enhancements to a rural byway in Virginia. Atlanta VISION 2020 Convened by the Atlanta Regional Commission to address the region’s rapid growth, the VISION 2020 effort lacked consensus among public-sector actors and did not result in the translation of vision initiatives and policies into regional action. Community Technical Assistance Program The New Hampshire Department of Transportation introduced an innovative program to help develop community-based visions with transportation and land use components in response to reconstruction projects along the I-93 corridor. California Regional Blueprint Planning Program The California Department of Transportation’s Blueprint grant program for MPOs advances regional coordination by enabling the development of consensus growth visions, which provide guidance for long-range transportation plans, land use, housing, and environmental issues. Vision PDX Championed by the City of Portland, Oregon, the Vision PDX process applied innovative techniques for public involvement to develop a vision for the built, economic, environmental, and social future for the city over 20 years. Riverfront Parkway Transportation Plan Chattanooga Venture was a pioneering organization that led many community-based efforts in the 1980s. The foundation provided by early visioning efforts led to action on several significant downtown development projects in Chattanooga, Tennessee—including the Riverfront Parkway Plan, which transformed a state highway into a pedestrian-friendly, two-lane road reconnecting the city to the river. Arizona State Road 179 The Arizona Department of Transportation used a community-driven, needs-based implementation planning process for reconstructing an environmentally sensitive corridor. The process evaluated solutions based explicitly on community values and with direct input from citizen advisory design teams. Transportation 2040 and Vision 2040 Developed by the Puget Sound Regional Council, Transportation 2040 represents the integration of the region’s long-range transportation plan with the goals and principles established in the region’s Vision 2040 visioning process. Vision Idaho Sponsored by the Idaho Department of Transportation, this process articulated a 30-year transportation vision for the state, including highway, public transit, bicycle, pedestrian, water, air, information technology, and rail systems. How Shall We Grow? Convened by the civic organization myregion.org, this visioning and public involvement campaign led to the development of a shared regional growth vision for Central Florida. The resulting growth principles continue to be supported by partners and implemented in regional transportation plans and local land use plans. New Visions 2015–2030 In the 1990s, the Capital District Transportation Committee began a dialogue on emerging regional issues related to transportation and land use. Since then, the New Visions regional planning and visioning effort has been continually updated and provided the framework for regional investments and local implementation efforts. Metro Vision 2035 An ongoing effort of the Denver Regional Council of Governments since the 1990s, the Metro Vision process has resulted in a broad regional plan for future growth and development that provides direct linkages to the region’s long-range transportation plan and urban growth boundary.

14 A list of more than 150 potential examples was compiled by a review of transportation agency websites, a review of academic literature addressing visioning processes and public involvement techniques, and discussion with national experts who have had experience and involvement in a variety of trans- portation planning projects. The project team then reviewed and categorized candidate projects based on the five typology filters. The team then compared each on the basis of how closely the visioning process was related to transportation considerations, particularly issues of transportation capacity, and whether the visioning process yielded outcomes that influenced transportation projects or policies. Approximately 70 candidate case studies emerged from this initial screening and were reviewed more thoroughly. The project team reviewed materials including websites, final reports, presentations, and news articles for each project to assess availability of information and fit with the research objectives of this project. Twenty examples were chosen that best met criteria and provided a representative sample using the five typology filters. The research team reviewed each of the selected visioning processes in detail and developed a case study summary for each. Research was conducted using online information, academic publications, and peer reviews. Telephone inter- views also were conducted with key representatives from the lead organization and related transportation partners in DOTs, MPOs, and other transportation agencies. The case studies were developed consistently by employing a detailed question- naire and survey form. The summaries were peer reviewed by members of the project team to ensure accuracy and objectivity. Summaries of the individual case studies were then vetted by key contacts within each organization to provide an opportunity for clarifications, comments, and final approval for publication. Full case study summaries are included in Appendix A. Lessons Learned and Success Factors Visioning in practice is never the same as in theory. Every vision process develops uniquely according to the community context, partners involved, issues considered, and challenges encountered. However, there are general lessons learned and key success factors common to many of these efforts that provide guidance for future efforts. Lessons learned were synthesized from case study research and the experiences of practitioners. • Articulate purpose. Visioning is a powerful tool for organizing a community and building consensus. Stating early and often why the visioning process matters and reviewing project objectives as the process continues, help build a clear link between the vision and the specific plans and projects that it is intended to guide. • Engage stakeholders. Visioning efforts are intended to enable participants to understand the future impacts of today’s decisions. This goal is represented through scenario-based planning in which trend patterns are extended or alternative futures created, often with accompanying visualizations to help participants understand the outcomes and trade-offs involved. • Leverage existing efforts. Reviewing prior work of partners and even previous visioning efforts may help establish the support of partners, roles and responsibilities, and how a new vision fits into partner planning efforts. Leveraging existing plans also may help generate support from local elected officials with a stake in the development of those plans. • Collaborate with partners. Regardless of whether a public agency or civic organization leads a visioning effort, partner organizations are a major factor in any effort to reach con- sensus and in implementation. When the vision advances to policy and action recommendations, a lack of collabora- tion can impair momentum and weaken links between the principles developed in the visioning process and application to the plans and processes of partners. • Demonstrate effective leadership. Strong and effective leader- ship is crucial at many levels, from the project convener, to elected officials, partners, and stakeholders, and within the community itself. Leaders and publicly visible champions establish support and maintain commitments to the vision- ing process and its outcomes. • Sustain outcomes. Visioning efforts are meant to guide plan- ning for a long period of time, and the ability of a vision to influence efforts decades later reflects a strong commitment to the vision. Successful visions demonstrate that partner- ships may be sustained and outcomes carried forward into future decisions, and that transportation planning outcomes relate back to the original vision. • Communicate transparently. Visions featuring extensive and continued public involvement are often the most trans- parent to stakeholders. Successful processes exhibit clear vision statements that have been reached in a manner under- stood by all participants. For example, highway capacity is a topic usually managed and decided by professionals with extensive technical expertise. However, the reasons for capacity decisions can be understood and influenced by a community, and the links to other facets of community life may be more readily understood through a transparent process. • Cultivate leadership. Visions with strong political, business, and community leadership tend to be implemented more

15 than those without visible public champions and cultivated leaders in all sectors. Additionally, leadership may help ensure the success of a vision over a long period of time, especially in providing guidance to help the vision evolve and adapt to changes in political reality. • Analyze alternatives. Visioning processes invariably involve a competition of ideas and interests, but a shared learning process helps arrive at consensus. The gradual elimina- tion of future alternatives through discussion, testing, collaboration, and an understanding of choices and trade- offs is key to successful consensus building. Trade-offs should be clearly communicated through a scientifically based process that determines impacts with easily under- stood indicators. One of the common ways this is achieved is through the use of scenario-planning tools and tech- niques, with which participants can interactively judge the results of the choices made and eliminate undesirable alternatives.

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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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