A new report by the Mineta Transportation Institute (MTI) analyzes potential improvements to the transportation planning process through a greater focus on outcomes over projects. The report, titled “Fixing Our Broken Transit Planning Process,” was authored by MTI Research Associate Joshua Schank and Senior Consultant with InfraStrategies Emma Huang.
The authors determined:
- The first change must come before the official planning process even starts, as funds should be raised for an outcome rather than a project. Outcomes (e.g., reduced travel times) are the ultimate goals for the public and impact on communities, not necessarily the specific project.
- Next, agencies should separate the planning and environmental processes to free each to focus on appropriate objectives, leading to more specific outcomes with lower costs and potentially greater public impact and approval. Rather than conducting a mandated environmental review process in which public input is sometimes superficial, a separate planning process would free planners to incorporate public input more authentically. Planning agencies often design public outreach processes around a set of requirements. If instead they were designed around soliciting critical feedback, the entire process might feel more valuable for everyone involved.
- Finally, agencies should integrate planning, construction and operations costs up front. One strategy that has been effective is the use of a Project Charter, where all parties agree before a project begins exactly what their role is in the project and how decisions will be made. The charter can be updated throughout the process, but, at a minimum, it sets the expectation for how the project will unfold and assigns responsibilities to each department.
“There is a joke about transit agencies that goes as follows: Planners plan a project that can’t be built, engineers engineer a project that can’t be operated and operators operate a project very different from what was planned. It doesn’t have to be this way,” explain the authors.
Rather than focusing on top-down sweeping change that can take years to implement, the report shows agencies can actively reduce costs and shorten timelines by focusing on fixing overlooked inefficiencies inherent in the transportation planning process. Shifting focus from projects to outcomes benefits the agency, the infrastructure and the community.
The full report can be read at MTI’s website.
