Executive Summary

In five years since the passage of the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA), agencies have found effective public involvement to be a challenge. Even state and local governments which work to actively involve the public whom they serve, are sometimes frustrated by the difficulty in generating public participation. These frustrations are shared by community groups, who are often disillusioned with the agency’s public involvement efforts.

For the public, issues of trust, language, accessibility, attitude, and understanding must be overcome before they will fully engage in a long or short term planning process for their communities. Until these issues are addressed people will fight to preserve what they have, but they will be hesitant to dedicate time to a joint, proactive planning process. Given necessary resources, community organizations can help address these issues and engage the public.

In September 1994, five communities were chosen for a pilot Community Empowerment Program by the Surface Transportation Policy Project (STPP) and the Federal Transit Administration (FTA). The regions were selected based on: their potential for success; the ISTEA process which would be advanced; the issues or projects of national consequence that would be addressed; and the involvement strategy or capacity-building potential that would be developed. The purpose of this project was to move each community from a basic level of understanding to active participation in the transportation decision making process. The five community nonprofit organizations were given $20,000 each to enable them to develop an innovative community development process.

Each of these organizations evaluated the needs of the community, the level of public understanding about transportation issues, and current public concerns. Work plans were designed based on individual assessments and included everything from educational workshops to community planning sessions. The following case studies demonstrate that an investment in empowering the public can result in new ideas, better identification of problems, and an engaged citizenry. The five projects highlight the strengths of community organizations and provide ideas for agencies and nonprofit organizations to further engage the public in the transportation debate.

Throughout the program, each group received technical assistance from transportation and community development experts, including the Surface Transportation Policy Project. Fortunately, in small and large cities across the country, community organizations with an interest in transportation planning exist. Some of them are independently initiating projects that will empower citizens to become involved in the transportation debate. Others have a plethora of ideas, but lack the staff time or resources to fully pursue the needed projects. Partnerships between these organizations and local agencies -- partnerships that include sharing information, ideas, trust and resources -- can lead to great progress towards a community consensus about transportation needs.

The STPP/FTA pilot project on Community Empowerment further shows that Metropolitan Planning organizations and state agencies can contract directly with, or provide grants to, nonprofit organizations as a part of their public involvement and community planning efforts. An investment in public empowerment may result in new ideas, better identification of problems, and an engaged citizenry.