Two one-day workshops focused on getting resource agencies involved early in the project development process. Included a presentation by MaineDOT, two IDOT project case studies, and interactive group discussion on how IDOT might improve their current processes.
In 2003, the Illinois state legislature passed a bill instructing IDOT to adopt CSS principles in its planning and design of major projects. In response, IDOT has adopted a formal CSS policy (2005), developed detailed guidelines for practicing CSS, revised sections of the Bureau of Design and Environment Manual to reflect CSS, and embarked on a major statewide CSS training program (see also the IDOT CSS website). The statewide CSS legislation in Illinois mandates the application of CSS only for major projects, and it is often not applied to maintenance projects that will not be adding lanes or facilities.
The IDOT CSS Steering Committee began working with the consultant team in October 2008 and decided to target the technical assistance to address the challenge of merging the planning, CSS and NEPA processes. IDOT conducts many corridor studies, and some decisions are made at the corridor study level before the NEPA process is started and resource agencies get involved. When IDOT receives comments from resource agencies relatively late in project development, after a corridor study has been undertaken and the public has been engaged with a context sensitive process, staff must make changes that may affect commitments made to stakeholders or even start the entire process over from the beginning to reflect different alternatives. These changes not only cost IDOT time and money, but also can affect the level of trust that the department has with the public.
With the technical assistance, IDOT staff and the consultant team wanted to address the question of how to get the resource agencies involved earlier in the project development process, ideally during the corridor studies. They wanted to address this question in a peer exchange format to learn from the best practices of other states, and to engage resource agency staff as participants in order to educate them about the CSS and corridor planning processes. Although funding was not available for a full peer exchange, the workshop format brought in four speakers with experience from four other states (North Carolina, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Maine) and on the national level.
The Technical Assistance consisted of two one-day workshops held on November 17th, 2009 in Springfield and November 19th in Schaumburg/Chicago for a total of 74 participants.
More information:
Context Sensitive Solutions (Illinois DOT)
