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bullet Technical Resources

The Transportation Planning Capacity Building (TPCB) web site links decisionmakers, transportation officials, professional staff, and FHWA and FTA field staff to a variety of technical papers, reports, and other published materials. This information is regularly updated to provide the most timely, accurate sources to expand professional knowledge.

Please click below for documents in these topic areas:

Category Publications Case Studies
Funding Issues
Contracting    
Disadvantaged Business Enterprises    
Financial Management Go  
Grants    
Communities
Americans with Disabilities Act Go  
Community Design Go  
Community Impact Assessment Go  
Health and Human Services Go  
Human Environment Go  
Job Access Go  
Public Involvement Go Go
Title VI/Environmental Justice Go Go
Natural and Cultural Resources
Air Quality Go  
Linking Planning & NEPA Go  
Natural Environment Go  
NEPA Go  
Noise    
Operations
Design Go  
Freight In Planning Go  
General Go  
ITS Go  
Performance Measures Go  
Transit Ridership Go  
Planning Process
Land Use & Transportation Go  
New MPOs Go  
Planning Fundamentals Go  
Planning & Programming Go  
Smart Growth Go  
Related Areas
Public Affairs    
Real Estate Go  
Security
General Go  
Safety Conscious Planning Go  
Tools
GIS Go  
Modeling Go Go

Funding Issues

Contracting
  • Not available at this time.
Disadvantaged Business Enterprises
  • Not available at this time.
Financial Management
  • Financing the Statewide Plan: A Guidebook: State requirements for a financial component of the long-range planning process have been much less stringent than those for metropolitan planning organizations. Questions have arisen, like why should state departments of transportation develop a thorough financial planning process as part of their long-range plans? What should they contain? What strategies are there to bridge the ubiquitous gap between projected revenues and perceived needs? What are the pitfalls and success factors planners developing statewide, multimodal, long-range transportation plans should consider? The guidebook is designed to help answer these questions.
Grants
  • Not available at this time.
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Communities

Americans with Disabilities Act
  • Kelly Parkway Corridor Study Website ADA accessibility is not limited to the built environment, it includes the internet and other communications modes. This site is Section 508 compliant and also provides links to Spanish language pages for the local Hispanic population. The activities were undertaken as part of the San Antonio-Bexar County MPO certification review recommendations.
Community Design
  • Art in Transit...Making It Happen: Provides ten cases that illustrate the myriad ways in which transit agencies have engaged artists, civic leaders, community residents, and businesses in changing the way transit vehicles and facilities are designed.
  • Building Livable Communities with Transit: This booklet presents some of the successes (in terms of planning, development, and implementation) of the community-sensitive transportation planning development process including: Building Livable Communities with Transit, Center for Livable Communities, Livable Communities, Smart Growth Network, Sustainable Communities Network, Transit-Focused Development, Transportation for Livable Communities Network, Transportation Toolbox for Rural Areas and Small Communities.
  • Building Projects that Build Communities: Recommended Best Practices: This is a handbook to help local agencies, citizens, and WSDOT work together on transportation projects to meet communities' needs. The principles and practices are transferable to any transportation agencies working together. The handbook contains chapters on effective communication, project advocacy and management, conflict resolution, how to identify and involve appropriate community partners, keep projects and teams on track, and much more. In addition to very practical project management applications, it contains numerous resources to assist transportation professionals working with communities and others, including team agreement forms and team evaluations.
  • Context Sensitive Design: Context sensitive design (CSD) is a collaborative, interdisciplinary approach that involves all stakeholders to develop a transportation facility that fits its physical setting and preserves scenic, aesthetic, historic, and environmental resources, while maintaining safety and mobility. CSD is an approach that considers the total context within which a transportation improvement project will exist.
  • The Dynamics of On-Street Parking in Large Central Cities Executive Summary (MS Word)
  • Flexibility in Highway Design This Guide is about designing highways that incorporate community values and are safe, efficient, effective mechanisms for the movement of people and goods. It is written for highway engineers and project managers who want to learn more about the flexibility available to them when designing roads and illustrates successful approaches used in other highway projects. It can also be used by citizens who want to gain a better understanding of the highway design process.
  • The Returning City: Historic Preservation in the Age of Civic Renewal The Returning City examines how decisions about public transportation, community development, and historic preservation have contributed to shared successes in these areas. Through case studies it highlights where historic preservation values have influenced community transportation planning and how these values are influencing economic development decisions intended to support and promote transit use. (Text Only HTML, PDF Part A, PDF Part B)

Community Impact Assessments
Health & Human Services
Human Environment
Job Access
Public Involvement

Public Involvement Case Studies
Under ISTEA, continuing under TEA-21, and through related regulations State DOTs and Metropolitan Planning Organizations are required to have a proactive public involvement processes. Many States and agencies in major metropolitan areas update their public involvement plans and procedures regularly using input from staff experience and the public. Nonetheless, transportation professionals continue to express interest in learning about understandable and professionally accepted methods for evaluating how well public involvement plans or procedures work. Following are a number of case studies that illustrate effective methods for public involvement.

Community-Based Organizations
Working with Community-Based Organizations on Transportation Planning
Florida International University conducted an investigation on working with community-based organizations in the transportation planning process.

Design-Build
The Design-Build contracting process overlaps design and construction. Design-Build brings designers and construction contractors under a single contract with the agency, thus creating one point of responsibility.

Having both designers and builders under the same contract enables construction to begin after a portion of the design has been completed. Designers engage in initial design, obtain feedback from the builder partner; design proceeds further, construction begins, feedback continues; design is finished, and then construction is completed. Design-Build increases efficiency and allows for dispute resolution within the design-build team.

With this iterative, open-ended process, designers can better incorporate public viewpoints before the design is finalized.

However, the open-ended design process also causes uncertainty for the agency and contractor that makes the contracting process itself a challenge. After all, without a design, how do you set the terms and price for the final product?

Public involvement raises two concerns that need to be addressed in the contracting process if Design-Build is to succeed.

  1. What are the standards and who has the responsibility for effective public involvement? It is easy enough for an agency to require effective public involvement practices, but what does that mean? The three case studies offer different approaches, but in each case the agency spelled out expectations and roles and responsibilities for the contractor and the agency in the contract.
  2. Effective public involvement can produce new ideas and requirements that weren't anticipated by the project team. What if the project requires major changes that affect cost as a result of the input received from the public? How can this be anticipated and how can the contract process protect the interests of all parties: the contractor, the agency, and the public? The three case studies used very different approaches in which each addressed the issue at one or more stages. Getting agreement early in the project on roles, design parameters and outreach standards is one means of planning for this inevitability.

Design-Build is not intended to replace the traditional Design-Bid-Build process. There are some projects for which it may not be appropriate given the complexity of the project or its stage of development and public acceptance. Rather, Design-Build provides agencies with an additional tool for delivering transportation projects that serve the public interest.

Long Range Planning
The following case studies illustrate how transportation departments can engage the public and stakeholder groups in the area of long-range planning.

Operations
The following case studies illustrate how transportation departments can engage the public and stakeholder groups on operations.

  • Neighborhood Traffic Management (Central Arcata California Traffic Task Force):Transportation facilities are aging and becoming more heavily used. When traffic impacts local neighborhoods, engaging the public about their concerns can assist public officials in deciding how to manage traffic more effectively and balance improved traffic flow with community livability.
  • Incident Management and Response (Incident Management Task Force, Chattanooga Hamilton County Regional Planning Agency): Most cities have some form of incident management activity. Typically, public agencies focus on carrying out their own responsibilities with relatively little interagency cooperation or public dialogue. Coordination between agencies and public stakeholders on a shared set of incident management goals can lead to increased effectiveness of an incident management program.
  • Major Facility Reconstruction (Blanchette Bridge Reconstruction Project, Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT)): Major reconstruction impacts a wide variety of groups: nearby residents and businesses, weekday commuters, shippers, and public transportation providers and their customers. Working with the public and stakeholder groups early on to avoid and mitigate construction related impacts can result in less controversy, reduced project delay and improved public trust.

Process Evaluation

  • Alaska: Evaluation Through Public Engagement Case Study
    The Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities (ADOT) began in 1996 to redefine the agency's relationship to the public. Through self-assessment, the ADOT determined that its communication was too oriented to public relations, resulting in a one-way flow of information to the public. They saw the requirement for proactive outreach to the public in ISTEA as an opportunity to create a two-way communication process and better define the role of the public in agency decision making.

  • Brevard Metropolitan Planning Organization (Viera, Florida) -- Understanding the Purpose Upfront Case Study
    The Brevard Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) adopted a new Public Involvement Plan (PIP) and Evaluation Handbook in November 2000. The PIP provides the policy to support evaluation and details the full complement of public involvement techniques and their application. The Evaluation Handbook takes this one step farther delineates evaluation criteria, performance goals and methods to meet each for all of the techniques outlined in the PIP. By developing these documents together, the agency created an effective framework to simultaneously conduct, evaluate, and refine its public involvement policy and techniques.

  • Florida DOT Case Study on Public Involvement (MS Word, PDF)
  • Minnesota Department of Transportation Case Study (MS Word, PDF)
Title VI/ Environmental Justice

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Natural & Cultural Resources

Air Quality
Linking Planning & NEPA
Natural Environment
  • Natural Environment: This page directs you to the FHWA resource page for the agency’s programs associated with the natural environment.
NEPA
  • Environmental Streamlining: Provides a background on environmental streamlining including a list of streamlining initiatives and a summary of State activities.
  • The Environmental Guidebook: Companion website to the Federal Highway Administration's Environmental Guidebook on Compact Disc, November 1999. It provides NEPA environmental guidance and policy information on The Natural Environment (Volume 1) and The Built and Social Environment (Volume 2).
Noise
  • Not available at this time.
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Operations

Design
  • Art in Transit ...Making It Happen: Provides ten cases that illustrate the myriad ways in which transit agencies have engaged artists, civic leaders, community residents, and businesses in changing the way transit vehicles and facilities are designed.
  • Building Livable Communities with Transit: This booklet presents some of the successes (in terms of planning, development, and implementation) of the community-sensitive transportation planning development process including: Building Livable Communities with Transit, Center for Livable Communities, Livable Communities, Smart Growth Network, Sustainable Communities Network, Transit-Focused Development, Transportation for Livable Communities Network, Transportation Toolbox for Rural Areas and Small Communities.
  • Building Projects that Build Communities: Recommended Best Practices: This is a handbook to help local agencies, citizens, and WSDOT work together on transportation projects to meet communities' needs. The principles and practices are transferable to any transportation agencies working together. The handbook contains chapters on effective communication, project advocacy and management, conflict resolution, how to identify and involve appropriate community partners, keep projects and teams on track, and much more. In addition to very practical project management applications, it contains numerous resources to assist transportation professionals working with communities and others, including team agreement forms and team evaluations.
  • Context Sensitive Design: Context sensitive design (CSD) is a collaborative, interdisciplinary approach that involves all stakeholders to develop a transportation facility that fits its physical setting and preserves scenic, aesthetic, historic, and environmental resources, while maintaining safety and mobility. CSD is an approach that considers the total context within which a transportation improvement project will exist.
  • Flexibility in Highway Design: This Guide is about designing highways that incorporate community values and are safe, efficient, effective mechanisms for the movement of people and goods. It is written for highway engineers and project managers who want to learn more about the flexibility available to them when designing roads and illustrates successful approaches used in other highway projects. It can also be used by citizens who want to gain a better understanding of the highway design process.
  • The Dynamics of On-Street Parking in Large Central Cities: Executive Summary (MS Word)
Freight Planning
  • Freight planning is an important component of the transportation planning processes. Input from a variety of public and private stakeholders - State DOTs, MPOs, freight modes, general public - must be considered to successfully integrate freight planning into the existing transportation planning processes. The Freight Planning web site has been jointly developed by the FHWA Offices of Planning and Freight Management & Operations.
General
  • National Coalition for Advancing Transportation Operations "Moving From Dialog to Action", (MS Word) The National Dialogue on Transportation Operations culminated at the October 2001 National Summit in Columbia, Maryland. This article summarizes the significant amount of work that has been done since the summit to lay to foundation to move from “dialogue” to “action”, including institutional changes that have been implemented, tools that have been developed, and a name change to National Coalition for Advancing Transportation Operations.
ITS
Performance Measures
  • TRB Performance Measurement Exchange Site. This site allows people with common interests, goals or expertise to share their experiences and knowledge, collaborate on work, identify and exchange best practices and advance the state-of-the-art in their field. This site allows visitors to contribute their thoughts and ideas in an open forum.
Transit Ridership
  • Ridership Publications A variety of publications are available from the Transit Cooperative Research Program (TCRP) website. TCRP provides practical research to yield near-term results by solving operational problems, adopting useful technologies from related industries, and finding ways for the public transportation industry to innovate.
    Links:
  • FTA Individualized Marketing Campaign Demonstration The FTA is undertaking a research demonstration program aimed at increasing public transit ridership through a new targeted marketing program. Called “Individualized Marketing,” the concept has proven successful in Europe and Australia, and has shown promising results in Portland, Oregon.
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Planning Process

Land Use & Transportation
  • NEWFHWA Land Use and Transportation Planning Coordination Domestic Scan Tour II, November 3-7, 2003, (PDF). Focuses on communities in three southeastern states: Florida, North Carolina, and Tennessee, this scan tour emphasized the redesign, redevelopment, and retrofitting of roadway corridors that included new design and planning elements to enhance the livability of each community. The scan tour team reviewed visioning processes that considered the interrelationships among transportation, land use decision-making, quality-of-life, and economic vitality issues.
    (Executive Summary)
  • 2003 Domestic Scan Tour Report: Land Use and Transportation Coordination (PDF) Designing transportation systems that enhance mobility, economic opportunity, and community livability is a major challenge for many communities across the country. In the United States, political leaders, planning professionals, and private citizens are increasingly aware of the connections between land use policies and transportation planning. In the autumn of 2002, the Federal Highway Administration sponsored a domestic scan tour to learn about projects in Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming aimed at successfully integrating land use and transportation planning. A delegation of Federal and local government representatives visited these projects to collect, synthesize, and distribute information on innovative approaches to this issue. Their findings are contained in this report.
  • Highways & Sprawl in North Carolina This study reviews the growth of North Carolina’s 1551 Census tracts during the 1990s compared with the location of major road improvements. Tract data on changes in population, demographics, prior density, and location are merged with detailed data on 312 major road projects completed during the 1990s, and the relationships between road investments and growth are determined for each of the 12 commuting regions. The study concludes that local governments, not road agencies, should accept their responsibility for growth policies. Road projects are blunt and inefficient instruments for either spurring or slowing growth.
  • Land Use and Economic Development in Statewide Transportation Planning: Provides an overview of land use activities of state departments of transportation.
  • Land Use, Transportation, and Growth Management in Maryland (PDF)
  • Lincoln Land Institute: Land Use and Transportation in the Metropolitan Planning Process
    Contents of Meeting and Contact Information
New MPOs
  • New MPOs will find resources to assist starting a new or revamping an older MPO.
Planning Fundamentals
Planning & Programming
  • Framework For Action: Building The Fully Coordinated Transportation System is a comprehensive evaluation and planning tool to help state and community leaders and agencies involved in human service transportation and transit services, along with their stakeholders, improve or start coordinated transportation systems. Assessment and planning can be completed in one or two meetings. Implementation time will depend on the action items participants choose to pursue.
  • Improving Public Transportation Services through Effective Statewide Coordination, (PDF) prepared by the National Governor's Association for the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services and the U. S. Department of Transportation, December 2002. This report identifies the benefits of transportation coordination, the range of programs and potential players, mechanisms that states are using to create effective coordinating bodies, and potential challenges to and available resources for achieving broader state transportation goals.
  • Innovative State and Local Planning for Coordinated Transportation, prepared by the Volpe National Transportation Systems Center, Research and Special Programs Administration, U.S. Department of Transportation, for the Office of Planning, Federal Transit Administration, U.S. Department of Transportation, February 2002.
Smart Growth
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Related Areas

Public Affairs
  • Not available at this time.
Real Estate
  • FHWA Real Estate Property Management: Provides resources on access management, traditional property management, and corridor preservation as well as TEA-21 and project development guidance.
  • Project Development Guide (PDG): A practical approach to developing a right-of-way project. It leaves the requirements needed for Federal-aid projects to the regulatory material found elsewhere. In it you will find plain talk and common sense ways to deal with developing a right-of-way project in addition to mini-case studies to demonstrate how others have handled a variety of right-of-way problems.
  • FHWA Real Estate Publications: Provides publications and technical documents on Federal-aid programs, outdoor advertising, appraisal, and right-of-way program management.
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Security

General
  • The Role of the Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) In Preparing for Security Incidents and Transportation System Response Michael D. Meyer, Ph.D., P.E. This paper outlines possible roles for MPOs in a regional strategy for handling security/disaster incidents. The appropriate role depends upon the political and institutional context for that region and the expertise and capabilities of the MPO staff. Given the regional nature of an incident of the scale and scope of the events of September 11th or of a natural disaster such as an earthquake, the MPO has potentially an important role to play. In fact, existing MPO hurricane and disaster evacuation plans are a good starting point and may be sufficient for the types of incidents anticipated.
Safety Conscious Planning
  • Safety Conscious Planning - SCP implies a proactive approach to the prevention of accidents and unsafe transportation conditions by establishing inherently safe transportation networks.

Tools

GIS
  • The GIS in Transportation website highlights innovative transportation-related applications of GIS across the country. GIS in Transportation is home to detailed descriptions of featured GIS applications and a searchable database of GIS applications. It also provides links to upcoming events, GIS data sources, current publications, and FHWA contacts. The GIS in Transportation website serves as a portal to GIS activities within FHWA and its partners and customers.
Modeling
  • Federal Transit Administration (FTA) Planning Techniques: This site has links to documents that relate to transit planning including: Travel Demand Forecasting
  • Introduction to Urban Travel Demand Forecasting CD-Rom
    This CD is intended to communicate the basics of forecasting to those interested in an overview of the complex travel demand forecasting process. The CD can serve as a training program as well as forecasting reference material.
  • Transportation Modeling: The Travel Model Improvement Program (TMIP) is a multi-year, multi-agency program to develop new travel demand modeling procedures that accurately and reliably forecast travel for a broad range of modes, policy actions and operational conditions. This web site was established to assure that practitioners have access to the best transportation planning methods available.
  • Tool Box for Regional Policy Analysis: This toolbox is designed for use by metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs), state departments of transportation (DOTs), and other analysts who wish to assess a range of impacts in regional transportation and/or land use planning. Impacts of interest may include economic development, environmental justice, accessibility, land development, wetland and habitat impacts, and other social and environmental measures associated with transportation investments and land use policies.
  • United States Department of Transportation (U.S. DOT)/Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) Office of Statewide and Intermodal Programs: Statewide Planning Online Documents: Provides links to summaries and examples of statewide planning provisions under Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA) and the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21) in addition to the Guidebook on Statewide Travel Forecasting (pdf).
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