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To: |
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Bill Ahrens, Transportation Planner |
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July 22, 2005 |
On June 6-9 I attended the 2005 Community Impact Assessment Workshop in Scottsdale, AZ hosted by AZ Dept. of Transportation and sponsored by Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and the Transportation Research Board.
Community Impact Assessment (CIA) is designed to integrate transportation planning and decision-making with the factors that define a community. It identifies, documents, and analyzes community characteristics, determines the potential impacts of transportation projects upon them, and results in documented mitigation, avoidance, minimization, or enhancements that are used in the planning and design of transportation projects. It emphasizes that community impacts deserve serious attention in project planning and development.
CIA is an outgrowth of the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) and highway study processes as a mechanism to mesh similar, but separate processes. In 1989, FHWA convened a conference and workshop of selected state and federal transportation and environmental planners and analysts. The group analyzed the various transportation, environmental and public involvement processes and developed the CIA procedures. I participated in the 1998 workshop representing the Region VII states and have followed the CIA’s evolution since and was glad to be able to attend the AZ workshop.
The opening session by Robert Puentes from the Brookings Institution dealt with redefining metropolitan America, discussing general demographic and economic trends and what those indicate for transportation planning and decision making. Following that were breakout sessions and I attended one on environmental justice (EJ) considerations in toll roads, presented by Dr. Gerald Torres from the University of Texas. Consideration of tolling is now a major funding option for state DOTs and local agencies. While any transportation project must consider EJ impacts, toll projects should also consider the greater community-wide impacts of toll vs. non-toll, diversion of trips, and cost impacts to users. Mitigation options must also be part of the consideration.
Several other sessions dealt with public involvement processes, use of the internet as an effective communication tool, and innovative communication concepts such as hands-on techniques, video animation, and modeling to convey project impacts and mitigation options. The sessions illustrated successful projects in CO, AZ, and UT that involved environmentally sensitive areas, impacted minority and low-income neighborhoods, or needed to effectively reach a very broad audience. Several sessions dealt with the challenges of carrying out a major project in the heavily urbanized area of central Phoenix and in working with the business and minority communities in those areas. A luncheon talk by Mike Ellegood, Maricopa Co. Public Works Director on working with public officials and the media was very interesting and focused on the need for professional staff to protect and enhance their credibility, to always clarify opinion vs. scientific fact, to be consistent and accessible, and to keep one’s elected officials informed and advised.
Overall it was an interesting and useful workshop. Effective public involvement is always challenging and is a mandatory part of transportation processes. CIA techniques go beyond “traditional” project-oriented analysis and involvement and attempt to make a more community-wide assessment of impacts. My only criticism of the workshop was that most of those in attendance tended to be local, state, and federal staff already involved in transportation and environmental analysis, i..e “preaching to the choir” and that future workshops should make an effort to include senior managers and policy-makers to get high-level buy-in to more encompassing studies.