Ted Mason, ITD, kicked off the workshop by providing background on why Idaho responded to the initial request from FHWA soliciting interest in CSS technical assistance. He noted that ITD is in the process of rewriting several manuals and is looking to develop a checklist to help the department be more mindful of CSS principles. Attendees introduced themselves and explained what they hoped to gain from the workshop. Responses from the attendees revealed that:
After the welcome and introductions, there was a series of presentations to provide context and lay the foundation for the rest of the workshop. First, Keith Moore, FHWA, provided an overview of FHWA’s CSS initiatives, including its resources available to states. He explained each section of the newly developed CSS brochure, which documents a timeline of CSS activities, the interdisciplinary nature of CSS, and its benefits, both to agencies and stakeholders. He noted that the brochure is a tool for explaining “what we do and why we do it.”
A national overview of CSS practice, including examples of what other states are doing was provided. Key items mentioned during the presentation included:
Sonna Lynn Fernandez, ITD, provided an overview of CSS and practical solutions at ITD. She presented a timeline of the major milestones related to CSS and other related policies. She explained that ITD emerged as a leader in CSS in the 2000s, and that Idaho has seven case studies featured on Contextsensitivesolutions.org. She highlighted the CSS process and specific CSS outreach activities used for the case studies. Sonna mentioned the Public Outreach Planner (POP), a tool for analyzing and quantifying public outreach needs, and how it can be used for stakeholder engagement and public involvement.
The next two presentations were case studies of how CSS strategies were used in Idaho on specific projects. Deirdre Castillo, City of Pocatello, provided an overview of the South Valley Connector project. Ben Burke, ITD, presented two projects: Driggs Main Street and Victor Main Street.
Deirdre explained the history and construction of the South Valley Connector project, including its environmental assessment, challenges experienced throughout the project, and how public input was sought. The project won five awards from multiple transportation associations and was one of the biggest in Pocatello.
Ben presented the details of two main street reconstruction projects. He shared his experience working with local businesses in both cases, and how the team worked to be responsive to the needs and feedback of those local businesses. He also detailed the challenges associated with not having explicit guidance on what the cities wanted, and how this ambiguity affected the management of costs and expectations. One lesson learned from these projects was that the city should ideally take on a large share of communication with individual community members.
The set of questions given to participants at the end of the first day as a homework assignment can be found in the Appendix of this document.
The second day began with the third case study, which comprised two projects.
Juan Balderas, ITD, presented US 20/26 (Chinden Boulevard). He explained the outreach conducted as part of the project process, and how the project team navigated the environmental considerations and stakeholder interests associated with the project.
Mark Campbell, ITD, presented the Broadway Avenue Bridge Replacement project. He explained that the team began with clarifying the scope of the project – what to address, and what not to address. The project team held several workshops in order to introduce the community to the project and explain what would be replaced and why. Doing this outreach was particularly important due to the location and visibility of the bridge. It helped ensure that no one was surprised once work began. The team received input and evaluated it to determine whether it met the purpose and need of the project, as well as whether it was constructible. Mark noted that while a higher than average portion of the budget was dedicated to outreach, it was worthwhile because there were very few calls once the bridge closure began, and now he can serve as a more valuable asset to ITD based on his experience.
After the case study presentations concluded, a synthesis of the responses received from the homework assignment was provided. In the responses to the question about key considerations important to guiding the development of a practical solutions/design checklist, several themes emerged. Many of the responses were related to community involvement. Others included conveying budget realities early, design exceptions, defining multimodal considerations, conveying expectations, validating input, and identifying minimum design standards acceptable to the community.
The following session was a facilitated brainstorming exercise. Participants worked in groups to submit responses to the following focus question:
Given what you have heard so far and your understanding of the role and importance of the practical solutions philosophy, what are the most important topics or considerations which need to be covered by a practical solutions/design checklist to be used statewide for planning and designing transportation infrastructure improvements?
The participants submitted their ideas and then worked collectively to gather similar ideas together into clusters. They then worked together to develop overarching category names for each cluster. The category names represented the key focus areas to be considered for better integrating CSS and practical solutions principles into ITD’s decision-making process, as developed by the group. The focus areas that emerged were:
Rod Reed, ITD, then presented on ITD’s charter process. He provided a high-level overview of project management in general, and then discussed ITD’s project management model. He then explained how ITD’s project charters are used, and emphasized that they are living documents.
Cynthia Gibson, Idaho Walk Bike Alliance, then provided a presentation on the work of her organization. She presented the perspective of vulnerable roadway users, and highlighted the fact that communities and DOTs often have their own jargon, making communication among them challenging.
Steve Tonks, ITD, then presented on a project in progress along US-93 and 400 S Road in Jerome County, north of Twin Falls. This project served as the first test case of the workshop. The purpose of the test cases was for participants to practice applying the focus areas, listed above, to a real project example, and develop and vet questions for consideration related to each focus area with a real project in mind, for the ultimate purpose of developing a practical solutions/design checklist.
Steve provided the details and challenges of the project before revealing the proposed solution. Afterwards, stakeholders and ITD worked in separate groups to develop relevant questions under each of the focus areas developed earlier in the day, keeping in mind the principles of CSS and practical solutions decision-making used in the test case.
Glenn Miles, Kootenai Metropolitan Planning Organization, presented the second test case of the Ramsey Road Extension from Wyoming Avenue to Lancaster Road. He provided the purpose and need of the project and detailed the stakeholder and public meetings that had occurred thus far.
After the two test cases were presented, participants were divided into new groups – this time, with the requirement that each group had to include both ITD staff and stakeholder representatives. The groups reviewed the questions developed earlier separately by ITD and stakeholders and worked to pull out the most relevant questions, and combine questions as needed.
At the end of the day, participants were provided with a set of questions related to ITD’s practical design guide as their homework assignment. These questions can be found in the Appendix.
Based on the results of the previous day, the facilitator adjusted the planned agenda for the third day to accommodate some needed discussion. The original plan was to have the participants develop key criteria for vetting the questions developed the previous day. Instead, the day began with a group discussion about the previous day’s homework. The takeaways that emerged from this discussion included:
After the discussion about the homework, participants worked in small groups (consisting of both ITD staff and stakeholder representatives) to vet and reword the questions developed the previous day based on the following four questions:
Participants were also encouraged to provide any relevant action item suggestions, and indicate where their questions best fit into existing ITD manuals or processes—for example, the project charter, the POP, etc. Afterwards, participants shared the outcomes of their discussions, then used sticky dots to “vote” on which questions had the most significant impact on building consensus with stakeholders, and could be incorporated into current processes or manuals.
Below are the final questions and action items that emerged, organized by focus area. The table below also captures where the questions should be integrated, if that was provided, and how many “votes” each question received. Below the table is a summary of the wrap-up session of the workshop.
| Focus Area | Question/Action Item | Where the Question Should be Integrated | Sticky Dot Count |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lessons Learned | What did we do well? Examples:
|
As the exit criteria for each phase of the project | 2 |
What could we have done differently? Examples:
|
As the exit criteria for each phase of the project | 4 | |
| Have I shared lessons learned in the lessons learned library? | As the exit criteria for each phase of the project | 15 | |
| Have I implemented lessons learned in the development process? | As the exit criteria for each phase of the project | 3 | |
| Community Engagement | Have we had a dialogue with the community to identify project constraints and what opportunities for flexibility exist to meet purpose and need and the community vision? | POP | 17 |
| Has an outreach process been documented that supports we effectively communicated the purpose and need? | POP and charter | 3 | |
| Has an outreach process been documented that supports we effectively communicated the project is consistent with long-term goals of the community? | Charter | 2 | |
| Stakeholder Involvement* | Include sections in charter that address agreements needed! (i.e. maint, cooperative) | Charter | 8 |
| PR person should or could update the district stakeholder list | POP | 1 | |
| Flow – POP to PR person; include upfront in charter | Charter | 1 | |
| Make stakeholder schedule inclusive through development and include in the charter. | Charter | 7 | |
Stakeholders: POP Make POP more inclusive of entire process not just planning stage. |
POP | 1 | |
| Project Understanding | Design Is the design constructible? Is the project maintainable? (long-term?) |
Charter creation guidebook In design post charter |
3 |
Planning What information is needed to develop design, concept, scope, and budget? |
Charter Evaluation Phase (pre-charter) |
8 | |
| Are the complexities of the project well defined enough for constructability? [(Access, wetlands, interest groups, RoW, etc.…) High risk issues] | Charter | 3 | |
Risks What high risk issues are involved in this project? (Could impact scope, schedule, budget) ROW, ENV, Utilities |
Charter Design Phase |
10 | |
Planning Have all we looked at and analyzed all long-term plans and how they affect the local community/ITD? |
Design Phase Charter |
6 | |
Planning Should phasing be utilized in design to more efficiently use resources? |
Evaluation Phase (pre-charter) |
0 | |
| Outreach Strategies | How can we incorporate the community’s needs and expectations into the design of the project? |
Charter |
0 |
Who are our stakeholders? What are their needs and expectations? Do we have an engagement plan? |
POP |
1 | |
What are the indirect impacts on the stakeholders (decision, project, etc.)? |
Charter |
2 | |
What are the travel modes that will be impacted? What are their specific needs? |
Charter |
0 | |
What are the direct impacts on the stakeholders (decision, projects, etc.)? |
Charter |
2 | |
| Outreach Tools | Action Item (for Sonna Lynn Fernandez): Inform staff of current/future tools and strategies (POP, Com Plan, CSS, EJ/6, etc.) |
POP |
5 |
Action Item (for Sonna Lynn Fernandez): Create a document for stakeholders on how they can engage (process) with ITD. Create an advisory committee to development. |
Charter |
10 | |
Is ITD effectively using already existing area transportation committees? |
Charter |
1 | |
What tools/processes should we use to communicate with our stakeholders? |
POP |
2 | |
Are there community specific communication needs? (EJ, Title VI) (how do they want to be communicated with) |
Charter |
0 | |
For large scale projects, should ITD establish a community advisory committee to discuss the project (needs, expectations, timeliness, impacts, risks, etc.) |
POP, Charter |
0 | |
| User Accommodation | Who are the current and future users? |
Charter, not sure where |
8 |
What are the users’ needs currently and future? |
Maybe charter? |
19 | |
What are safety concerns for each user? |
Could put in charter but unsure where? |
0 | |
Can the local network serve some of the identified user needs better?
|
Charter? | 5 | |
| How do the user needs compete? | Charter? | 0 | |
Action Item: Evaluate and revise ITD’s current multi-model standards to be more useable. |
4 | ||
| Vision | Who owns the vision for the project? | Evaluation Phase (pre-charter) | 5 |
| How are priorities to be established? | Evaluation Phase (pre-charter) | 5 | |
| Is the proposed action maintainable? | Evaluation Phase (pre-charter) | 2 | |
| Will this project require a strategy to manage long term change? | Evaluation Phase (pre-charter) | 1 | |
| Has outreach been made to all stakeholders to vet the proposed action? | POP and Evaluation Phase (pre-charter) |
1 | |
| Is the proposed action setting a precedent? | Evaluation Phase (pre-charter) | 0 |
*Lori Porreca, FHWA, provided additional notes on the discussion that took place in the group responsible for developing the questions related to stakeholder involvement. These notes are available in the Appendix.
The groups reported out on their discussions.
In the last session of the workshop, participants held a facilitated wrap-up discussion to determine next steps. The following emerged as next steps:
