5. Community Engagement

“As appropriate, actively communicate and employ early, continuous, and meaningful participation of the public and all stakeholders throughout the transportation planning, program development, and project delivery process in an open, honest, and respectful manner.”

6. Vision, Purpose, and Need

“Satisfy the project vision, purpose, and need as developed and agreed upon early in the process by a full range of stakeholders.”

Considerations

Considerations

Operating behind ‘closed doors’ leads to distrust and, ultimately, a project that fails the community. Community members provide detailed insight into the needs, wants, and concerns of the local area. In this process, persons of all backgrounds and understandings must be engaged to ensure meaningful dialogue.

Community members enter a project at all points; from preliminary environmental studies through the completion of construction. One community member may be highly interested in the impacts of the earthmoving stage of construction and not join the conversation until years into the project, while another may be interested only in the methodologies of early environmental studies. Whatever the case may be, it is crucial that all community members feel welcomed, heard, and respected before, during, and after the projected timeframe of the transportation process.

A clearly developed set of statements prior to action on highway projects is a critical step that allows for guiding beliefs. Just as a company sets a mission statement, transportation projects often come with their own mission statements, need statements, vision statements, purpose statements, and/or others. These are carefully crafted statements that identify what is important to the project, keeping it on track throughout the design, engineering, and construction process.

As seen in Figure 1.16, MD 200 had a very clear statement that included water quality and wildlife considerations. As a result of these statements, and environmental studies confirming the need for design in line with these facets, the large bridge shown in Figure 1.16 was constructed. It is not merely a convert for water to flow, but it also keeps the banks intact and allows for easy wildlife movement under the highway.

The Boston Big Dig, as seen in Figure 1.17 above, was another example of an established vision, purpose, and need which helped the project navigate complex and powerful stakeholders, eventually creating a highly regarded project.