Foster Public Involvement in Planning Transportation Choices and Great Places

Transportation initiatives, land use planning, and development projects benefit significantly from meaningful community input and support. Every land use and transportation decision has a range of stakeholders, including property owners, residents, business owners, and government staff and elected officials. Some stakeholders are already actively involved in decision-making, while others need to be invited into the process. Involving stakeholders early in the planning process helps to identify community concerns and opportunities that can help shape the project, and discuss the goals and strategies being advanced through the project.

Successfully integrating public involvement into a project can be challenging. There is no hard and fast solution for public involvement. Examples of public involvement can include charrettes and visioning exercises that can help residents provide input, visualize different scenarios and shape the end project. This Clearinghouse highlights resources on public involvement techniques and examples of projects that successfully engaged the public. These resources are intended to provide a model for successful efforts and pitfalls to avoid while undertaking transportation and land use planning projects.

 

National Best Practice Examples

Fruitvale Transit Village, Fruitvale BART Station, Oakland, CA The Fruitvale Transit Village project is the result of a broad-based partnership among public, private, and nonprofit organizations. Facing strong community opposition to a proposed parking lot expansion, BART withdrew its proposal and agreed to work with the Unity Council, a non-profit community development corporation, on a plan for the area. During the next several years, they engaged local stakeholders in a comprehensive visioning and planning process that laid out the parameters of the Fruitvale Transit Village, including a mixture of housing, shops, offices, a library, a child care facility, a pedestrian plaza, and other community services all surrounding the BART station. More info

Fruitvale Village on opening day

Compass Blueprint, Los Angeles Region, CA In 2000, the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG), began exploring ways to conduct integrated, proactive planning across the Los Angeles region in a way that would engage the public as well as the local governments that traditionally participate in regional planning efforts. The foundation of the Compass Blueprint Growth Vision was laid at a series of public planning workshops or “charrettes” where a broad group of over 1300 stakeholders, including ordinary citizens, worked to show us how the region might look in the future. In total there were 20 subregional workshops and five region-wide events. This planning process resulted in a consensus vision of regional growth that is currently being implemented in both region-wide and local scale transportation and land use projects.  More info

Community charrettes generated the regional priorities in the Compass Blueprint process. [Source: Southern California Association of Governments]

 

 

Additional Resources and Examples

Link	Source	What it is
Tools for Public Involvement	US Environmental Protection Agency	A guide to public involvement in national, state and community land use planning.
Participation Toolkit	Local Government Commission	Strategies for organizing public participation.
Tools for Public Involvement in the Transportation Planning Process	Federal Highway Administration	A guide to public involvement in transportation planning.
Tools for Public Involvement	Federal Transit Administration	Weblinks to innovative approaches to public involvement in transportation planning.
Guide to Engaging Low-Literacy and Limited English Participants in Planning Processes	Federal Highway Administration	Strategies for involving low-literacy and limited English participants.
Public Participation Toolbox	International Association for Public Participation	A fact sheet listing techniques for outreach and information sharing.
Choosing Our Community's Future: A Citizen's Guide to Getting the Most out of New Development	Smart Growth America	A resource for citizens get the most out of community planning processes.

 

 

Local/Regional Examples

Planning process throughout the Washington region already provide good examples of public involvement at many scales, and examples are highlighted in the Washington region database. Public involvement in the planning and development process is critical in creating transportation choices and great places in the Washington region.