00939824

Component

Over the past year, the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) has sponsored a process improvement team to improve the way the department conducts National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) environmental review processes. A primary focus of this effort has been to reduce the likelihood that decisions made during the process will be revisited or discarded later in the process, resulting in wasted time, money and effort. Prior to the reinvention approach, the formal NEPA environmental process was started after the project was in the design stage, after the project's scope and budget had been set, and legislative commitments made. With support from the Federal Highway Administration, a team of federal and state agencies has proposed a revised process that would begin the formal NEPA process earlier, during the planning stage of potential future projects. By "moving NEPA back to the planning stage," WSDOT will better meet the intent of NEPA, which is to consider environmental impacts of projects in the planning stages to allow for improved project design with decreased impacts. The new process as defined allows resource and regulatory agencies to be involved in the decision making steps of NEPA, and defines formal "concurrence" steps that commit each agency to approval of the steps in NEPA, or to non-concur based on agency regulatory authority. In cases of non-concurrence it allows major environmental issues to be addressed up front rather than in the permit stages of the project when it is more expensive to re-design project elements. Major changes with the new process are as follows: (1) NEPA included in Planning: The revised process would begin the NEPA process at the planning stage, and end it at some point during design. Too often, work done during planning is ignored or redone when a project reaches the design stage. (2) Interdisciplinary Project Management Team: The revised process has an interdisciplinary team that includes members from planning, traffic, environmental and project development functions. (3) Agency Input: Permitting agencies have agreed to be part of the planning process, signing off on specific decision points to allow for "decisions that stick" rather than reconsidering issues at different stages of the process.

The CD-ROM contains the proceedings of the sixth, seventh and eighth conferences. The eighth conference proceedings were published in October 2001.

English

p. 413-421

2002

Eighth TRB Conference on the Application of Transportation Planning Methods

Decision making; Environmental impact analysis; Multidisciplinary teams; Project management; State government agencies; Transportation planning

National Environmental Policy Act of 1969; Washington State Department of Transportation

Administration and Management; Highways; Planning and Forecasting; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning

TRIS, TRB

Mar 25 2003 12:00AM

• A BEST PRACTICE TRUCK FLOW ESTIMATION MODEL FOR THE NEW YORK CITY REGION
• A PRACTITIONER'S ALGORITHM FOR QUASI-DYNAMIC TRAFFIC ASSIGNMENT
• ADDRESSING ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE (EJ) THROUGH COMMUNITY IMPACT ASSESSMENT (CIA)
• AN ANALYSIS OF TRAFFIC GROWTH RATES ON THE TEXAS-MEXICO BORDER
• B-NODE MODEL: NEW SUBAREA TRAFFIC ASSIGNMENT MODEL & APPLICATION
• CONGESTION PRICING AND ROADSPACE RATIONING: AN APPLICATION TO THE SAN FRANCISCO BAY BRIDGE CORRIDOR
• CORRIDOR SIMULATION STUDY FOR THE BRIDGE OF AMERICAS, EL PASO, TEXAS
• DEVELOPMENT OF AN ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE ANALYSIS METHODOLOGY FOR GEORGIA DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION'S MULTIMODAL TRANSPORTATION PLANNING TOOL
• ECONOMIC IMPACTS OF RAISED MEDIANS IN TEXAS: METHODOLOGY AND CASE STUDY RESULTS
• ENHANCING PUBLIC INVOLVEMENT THROUGH THE FULL UTILIZATION OF COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGY
• FINANCING THE REGIONAL TRANSPORTATION PLAN: BALANCING EXPECTATIONS WITH FISCAL CONSTRAINT
• FLEXIBLE FUNDING: TRENDS AND POSSIBILITIES
• FLORIDA URBAN LAND USE ALLOCATION MODEL (ULAM)
• GIS APPLICATIONS USING DIGITAL ORTHOPHOTO DATA
• HIGHWAY ECONOMIC REQUIREMENTS SYSTEM FOR INDIANA: STATEWIDE PLANNING APPLICATIONS
• IMPLEMENTING THE LAND USE AND TRANSPORTATION POLICY IN OREGON'S 1999 HIGHWAY PLAN
• IMPROVED PLANNING DATA COLLECTION USING HANDHELD COMPUTERS
• LAND DEVELOPMENT AND ACCESS MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES FOR INTERCHANGE AREAS
• LESSONS LEARNED: ACCESS MANAGEMENT PROGRAMS IN SELECTED STATES
• MAKING LIFE EASIER FOR PLANNERS, ELECTED OFFICIALS, AND THEIR CONSTITUENTS: VISUALIZING THE INTERACTION OF TRANSPORTATION AND LAND USE
• MODIFICATIONS TO TRADITIONAL EXTERNAL TRIP MODELS
• ORIGIN AND DESTINATION ESTIMATION IN NEW YORK CITY USING AUTOMATED FARE SYSTEM DATA
• PROCEEDINGS OF THE EIGHTH TRB CONFERENCE ON THE APPLICATION OF TRANSPORTATION PLANNING METHODS, CORPUS CHRISTI, APRIL 22-26, 2001
• PROVIDING PUBLIC ACCESS TO TRANSPORTATION PROJECTS AND FUNDING WITH A VISUAL, INTERACTIVE TRANSPORTATION IMPROVEMENT PROGRAM
• PUBLIC INVOLVEMENT PLAN FOR THE KELLY PARKWAY CORRIDOR STUDY
• PUBLIC INVOLVEMENT: "DO YOU HAVE A 'POLICY' OR A 'PLAN'?"
• QUICKRIDE: THE KATY HOT LANE PROJECT IN HOUSTON
• RECENT EXPERIENCE WITH TIME OF DAY MODELING
• RECOMMENDED GUIDELINES FOR THE CALIBRATION AND VALIDATION OF TRAFFIC SIMULATION MODELS
• STATEWIDE PLANNING TOOL TO SUPPORT MULTIMODAL DECISION-MAKING
• SUBURBAN FIXED RAIL TRANSIT PLANNING IN NORTHERN VIRGINIA
• SURVEY DATA REPAIR USING HOT-DECK IMPUTATION PROCEDURE
• TCSP: DEVELOPING INNOVATIVE COMMUNITY BASED PLANNING TOOLS
• THE NORTHWEST ARKANSAS TRANSIT ASSESSMENT STUDY
• THE ROLE OF FIXED COMMITMENTS IN SHAPING ACTIVITY-TRAVEL PATTERNS
• THE TRIUMPH OF THE TRIVIAL MPO
• TRAFFIC FORECASTING TOOL (TFT): A GIS-BASED FORECASTING APPLICATION FOR THE INDIANA DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION
• TRAVEL DEMAND MODELING AND CONFORMITY DETERMINATION: THE ATLANTA REGIONAL COMMISSION CASE STUDY
• USING A TRADITIONAL TRAVEL DEMAND FORECASTING MODEL TO PERFORM VARIABLE PRICING ANALYSIS
• USING TRANSIMS IN TRANSPORTATION DECISION MAKING
• VALUE PRICING PROJECTS AROUND THE UNITED STATES