Sep 2009 - Parsons Brinckerhoff

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“ Every person in every community is a decision maker.” –Robin Christians In Hawaii, young children as well as adults have learned how to protect the state’s waterways through fun and interactive lessons produced by PB. After the completion of an extensive public review and environmental impact statement for the Mountain View Corridor program in Utah, PB was selected to provide program management to the Utah Department of Transportation for a new corridor alignment in Salt Lake and Utah counties. Public Involvement Helps Speed Utah Highway Project In 2003, the Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT) started work on the Mountain View Corridor environmental impact statement (EIS) to examine options for a potential new 56-kilometer (35-mile) highway and high-capacity transit line in western Salt Lake and northwestern Utah counties. PB, as lead consultant to UDOT, provided project management, preliminary design and public involvement services. Public involvement was a critical program element because of the potential project impact to residents, businesses and the environment within the study area, which included 15 municipalities, says Eileen Barron, PB’s Public Involvement Manager for the Mountain View Corridor. Public outreach approaches and tools were carefully customized for each project stage to engage stakeholders proactively and meet project and stakeholder needs. Especially effective tools created by PB’s project visualization experts included illustrations for the EIS and renderings prepared for discussion with the Federal Highway Administration, a project partner. To raise awareness with the general public early in the planning process, the team planned a two-week tour of the corridor in 2004, during which informal public gatherings were held in visible, high-traffic locations in neighborhoods near the initial concept alignments. A unique tour element was a mobile billboard that read, “How Will the Mountain View Corridor Impact You?” The “Talk Truck” became the setting for nine neighborhood gatherings held in accessible locations and run by project managers, public involvement staff and project partners, including the local metropolitan planning organizations and the Utah Transit Authority. Tolling options added another aspect to the public outreach program because the project was the first in Utah to look at a possible fully tolled system. In 2006, the team implemented an open process to engage public discussion about funding issues. A summary of the issues was included in a project newsletter and on the project Website. The team also set up community meetings in each of the 15 affected municipalities to discuss the project. The draft EIS was released for public review in October 2007 and received more than 2,500 comments from stakeholders; their remarks were addressed in the final EIS. Proactively soliciting public comments on the draft document is a required part of the review process under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), but in this case, the team went “above and beyond” the usual solicitation methods and used a number of innovative tools to engage the public. The first communication challenge was how to reach the public on such a long corridor. To tackle that issue, PB and UDOT used a number of outreach strategies to get the word out and get comments on the draft EIS. The team made presentations to city councils to keep elected officials informed about the draft EIS and the associated comment period, and arranged public hearings. The team also developed print and online advertising, e-mail updates and posters with tear-off comment cards. The second challenge was making a 2,200-page technical EIS understandable to the public. To address that issue, the team developed a series of one-page fact sheets for about two dozen of the major EIS topics to help the general public understand the issues involved. Topics included alignments, trails, transit options and the project timeline. In all, PB's Utah public involvement team: Back row (left to right), Jessica Wilson and Amalia Deslis. Front row (left to right), Pam Murray, Annie Wong and Eileen Barron. more than 7,700 people were engaged by the outreach initiatives. After this process, in May <strong>2009</strong>, PB was selected as subconsultant to HDR to provide program management to UDOT for a new 64-kilometer (40-mile) corridor alignment in Salt Lake and Utah counties, a project that grew out of the original Mountain View Corridor EIS. PB is the task lead for public information. The project will be accomplished in phases; Phase 1 will begin in late <strong>2009</strong> and involves a 16-kilometer (10-mile) segment with a project cost of $700 million. “Public involvement supports good decision making,” says Barron. “The earlier we can understand the stakeholders’ needs and concerns, the more influence they can have on the project development.” Hawaii Storm Water Program Targets Children and Parents In 2005, the Hawaii Department of Transportation (HDOT) Highways Division engaged PB to bring the state’s storm water management program into full compliance with federal requirements. PB provided program management as well as technical services to execute the program’s many components, which included the development and implementation of a statewide public education and outreach program. Storm water management is aimed at reducing pollution in storm water runoff as well as flood protection. Because the general public is one of the largest contributors to storm water pollution, the outreach campaign was charged with educating Hawaii’s residents about how their everyday actions affect the quality of the state’s streams as well as the Pacific Ocean. The public outreach program targeted schoolchildren from kindergarten to high school, as well as college students and adults. “However, in envisioning the comprehensive program HDOT required, we recognized that to effect long-term behavioral change, the focus of the program would need to be the children of Hawaii who would, in turn, educate their parents,” says Larissa Sato, PB Deputy Project Manager. Hawaii’s state fish (the humuhumunukunukuapua’a) was chosen as the mascot for the storm water program and used in an animated logo for children’s materials, accompanied by the slogan, “Stick It to Storm Water Pollution.” In January 2007, a Name Our Mascot contest was held for students in grades 1 to 4; the winning name, Malama, submitted by 15 children, means “to care for” and “to protect” in Hawaiian. An engaging fish logo imprinted on materials directed to adults included the slogan, “Malama I Ka Wai,” which means “protect our water.” The far-reaching campaign included radio and television public service announcements (complete with a snappy storm water jingle, a talking fish and an appearance from Jordan Segundo, an “American Idol” finalist and local celebrity), a Website and a variety of printed educational materials and promotional items—such as erasers, pencils and magnets—produced for the school-aged set. PB’s Project Visualization practice worked with the team to develop the Website. “As part of our project’s educational initiative, we visit schools to teach students that what goes down the storm drain goes to the ocean untreated, and what they can do to keep Hawaii’s waters clean.” –Larissa Sato 20 • Notes Notes • 21
In October 2007, about 50,000 “Stick It to Storm Water Pollution” sticker books were distributed to children in grades 1 to 4 on the island of Oahu. Every year since, 15,000 sticker books are distributed to all first graders on Oahu. PB staff volunteer at more than 18 events each year, disseminating the storm water message to more than 150,000 people. Just three years after Hawaii’s storm water management program was rolled out, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency conducted a three-day audit of the program and said it was one of the most fully developed and comprehensive in the nation. “This was extremely gratifying to PB and our client because these were the same auditors who had determined in 2005 that the program was not in compliance with federal regulations, which resulted in the issuance of a consent decree to Hawaii DOT,” says Richard Dahilig, PB’s Program Manager. “This is a success for all of us in Hawaii. We all benefit from a cleaner environment.” ‘Hitting the Pavement’ in Texas Public involvement was a priority from the earliest stages of planning for the $2.8 billion Katy Freeway Reconstruction, the largest project in the history of the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT). “The freeway is a heavily traveled corridor and the scope of the project was huge,” says Meredith Gaber, PB’s Public Involvement Coordinator for the Katy project. “The businesses and residents who used the roadway needed to understand what was being done.” The project reconstructed a 37-kilometer (23-mile) stretch of I-10 West, referred to as the Katy Freeway and one of the most congested freeway corridors in Houston, along with other related corridor improvements. The work also included widening the original 11-lane highway to 18 lanes. All lanes were opened to traffic in October 2008, two months ahead of the already accelerated schedule. Following the firm’s role in managing the major investment study on I-10, PB’s subsequent role was general engineering consultant, responsible for project planning, design review, and providing construction and inspection services. PB staffed an information office located on the corridor that was open to the public and developed a number of communications 22 • Notes During construction on Katy Freeway (above), the Katy Newsletter (left) was integral to disseminating information on the program's progress, events and construction updates. PB’s public involvement team on the Katy Freeway project often arranged special events to celebrate project milestones. A special ribbon-cutting ceremony marked the completion of Interstate Highway 10 and the West Loop Interchange, the last major portion of the project to be completed. strategies for the project so that news was shared with stakeholders in a variety of ways throughout the course of construction. The communications team set up a speakers’ bureau whose representatives visited local businesses and neighborhood groups to update them about construction work and upcoming milestones. Further, team members met regularly with traffic reporters and other media to provide reports about major construction activities and temporary closures. PB also produced a quarterly newsletter that was disseminated electronically; and developed a system of blast e-mails through the integration of an Internet-based communications system called Newsrouter, that not only updated stakeholders and media about construction progress and temporary changes in traffic routing but also housed a database of stakeholder contacts. PB’s Project Visualization practice provided expertise in several ways. This included the design of the project Website, the creation of an interface with Newsrouter and the development of an animated video used by those on the speaking circuit. Meredith Gaber “The project was well-received,” says Gaber. “People appreciated our efforts to communicate, and as a result, they knew what to expect and how to plan for it. In fact, commuters told TxDOT that traffic was better during construction than it had been before the project started. Now that the project is complete, users are benefitting from hassle-free and quicker commutes and easier access to businesses located along the freeway.” Ensuring Fairness and Inclusion Understanding how civil rights and environmental justice laws apply to infrastructure projects is another critical component of the public involvement services PB provides. PB’s environmental justice outreach specialists and practitioners work to make sure that federally funded infrastructure projects comply with regulations and are fair in the way they engage various communities and groups, such as low-income and minority populations, in the decision-making process. That could include everything from temporary traffic disruptions to impacts on the environment. A number of complex laws apply, including Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which “prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin in programs and activities receiving Federal financial assistance.” Environmental justice is supported by a host of laws and guidances, including Executive Order 12898 and the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency defines environmental justice as “the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, culture, education, or income, with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies.” PB’s services include identifying and developing outreach programs that provide meaningful opportunities to educate affected populations. Practitioners also identify and quantify impacts to environmental justice populations and develop mitigation strategies. “We can work successfully on the ground at the grassroots level and also develop policy for agencies,” says Traceé Strum-Gilliam, Supervising Environmental Engineer. “Environmental justice population identification and outreach are very important to many of our projects,” she continues. “Working with citizens, community leaders and planners during the decision making process can actually help with the development of design concepts and strategies. For many projects, outreach takes place at the end of the design process. Our work at the beginning of the process helps us in identifying what communities value and what their needs are.” That was the case for the I-270/U.S. 15 Multi-Modal Corridor Study located in the Washington, D.C., suburbs in Montgomery and Frederick counties in Maryland. Through the environmental justice outreach team’s work at the grassroots level, PB was able to identify several new immigrant communities and provide project information in Spanish and translators at small group meetings. This made it possible to glean information to determine travel patterns and transportation needs for a growing Latino and African population. “The greatest tool we have is the power of communication,” adds Strum-Gilliam. “We are preparing for a fall meeting that will be conducted entirely in Spanish for one neighborhood.” “Working with citizens, community leaders and planners during the decision-making process can actually help with the development of design concepts and strategies.” –Traceé Strum-Gilliam The ongoing coordination has proved to be of great value as engineers and planners continue to work with communities to modify transit routes and to develop mitigation strategies to reduce residential displacements. Thus far the process has helped to save nearly 35 homes in the Fox Chapel community through the use of retaining walls and other design modifications. The team is currently developing strategies to save another 200 homes in several other low-income and minority communities. • The public can use the Maryland DOT's Website to easily access information about current projects, such as the I-270/U.S. 15 Multi-Modal Corridor Study. Notes • 23
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Sep 2009 - Parsons Brinckerhoff

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