Below is the uncorrected machine-read text of this chapter, intended to provide our own search engines and external engines with highly rich, chapter-representative searchable text of each book. Because it is UNCORRECTED material, please consider the following text as a useful but insufficient proxy for the authoritative book pages.
5Things were not going well. The report being delivered on progress made was accurate and supportive, but no one was buying it. Sixty or seventy public involvement sessions, and he had never seen the people in this room before. The policy makers were obviously anxious, feeling unprepared for what was going to happen next. A year and a half of study activity was about to go up in flames. Although the details may be different, almost everyone in the transportation profession can recall a situation in which they felt just like this. Interestingly, this specific incident ultimately resulted in a strong example of a collaborative corridor study. It happened in Los Angeles, California, and the result of this effort created an agreement among the primary partners to jointly fund the environmental review necessary to keep the project movingâas long as it was conducted the way the project leader- ship had learned would work. This particular corridor study to identify needed improve- ments along I-710 into the Port of Los Angeles initially pro- gressed in a way that would be familiar to most practitioners. The correct steps were in place, the technical analysis was led by a major consulting firm with strong expertise, the public involvement plan was robust and the outreach inclusive; however, as the study progressed, the stakeholders did not feel heard. They could not perceive that the decision mak- ers were representing their interests. The staff had provided all the necessary information to make a sound, defendable decision, but the concern of most interest to the stakehold- ers was not captured. That interest was the toxic effect of diesel emissions and its impact on the quality of life in the region. A pivotal moment came at one particular meeting, when everyone recognized that a major change needed to occur to save a much needed corridor study. The project direction and decision-making structure had to change dramatically, and that change needed to be communicated to the stakeholders immediately. In that meeting, the decision makers crafted the guiding principles that led the project forward: the creation of two stakeholder committees, new consultant support, and a new process for collecting public input. The recommended improvements along the corridor were universally supported and moved quickly into the environmental review process. The decision-making partnership that led the study commit- ted $5 million to support environmental review, carrying through the outreach and involvement efforts that had sup- ported the corridor study to that point. This example and many others make clear that âredo loopsâ are all too common in transportation decision making. How- ever, with growing needs and shrinking funding, the redo loop is simply too expensive. âEffective and efficient delivery of transportation improvementsâ has become a mantra in the profession. At the highest level, this desire has been supported by legislative mandate to become more inclusive of broader interests and needs at the earliest possible time. The redo loop is only one example of the risk associated with failure to fully collaborate with partners and stakehold- ers. A lack of collaboration with decision-making partners can make it more difficult to obtain the supporting actions needed to fully implement the project alternative. This is most often an issue with the resource agency partners that provide the regulatory approval necessary for implementa- tion. However, it may be just as meaningful if local land-use agencies fail to adopt a land-use policy or plan in support of the transportation improvement. Stakeholders in the general public often find the transportation decision-making process confusing and frustrating, which leads to mistrust of the transportation agency. This lack of public trust may not be apparent until late in the process; if decisions must be revis- ited at that point, inefficiencies and delays in project delivery may result. The goal of this research is to take successful practices in col- laboration, like the new direction taken in the I-710 case, and pair them with the ideas and experience of stakeholders and partners of the transportation decision-making process to build a systems-based, transparent, well-defined framework C h a p t e r 1 Introduction
6collaboration. Chapter 2 provides brief descriptions of the case studies along with a summary of the overall approach to developing the Framework. The barriers and success factors that were the most prevalent in the case studies or the most widely applicable to the Framework are discussed in Chap- ter 3 and Chapter 4, respectively. Chapter 5 is a description of the Framework and a demonstration of how the barriers and success factors were used as foundational material for the Framework design; the chapter also contains a database of key decisions from the case studies and input from practitioner workshops. The Framework, as well as the tools and applica- tions developed to support its use, will be available in a pub- licly accessible web tool to be completed in 2010. The structure and expectations for the tool are described in Chapter 6. for consistently reaching collaborative decisions on transpor- tation capacity enhancements. This involves bringing the right people into the transportation decision-making process at the right points, to find the right solution the first time. The Collaborative Decision-Making Framework (Framework or CDMF) is the outcome of this vision. The Framework was developed from 23 in-depth, detailed case studies of innovative practices in collaborative transporta- tion decision making, six workshops bringing together part- ners and stakeholders of the transportation decision-making process, and an extensive process of review and refinement. The case studies were used to identify barriers and success factors to collaborative transportation decision making, as well as the specific elements of a project or plan that support
