01042412

Component

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Washington State’s streamlined transportation decision-making process was showcased at the Sixth National Conference on Transportation Planning for Small and Medium-Sized Communities. This new process, named Reinventing NEPA, is a partnership with the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and incorporates the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) principles into the early transportation planning process. State Route (SR) 104 was chosen by the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) as one of three projects in the state to test the new pilot. This presentation will explain how the process on SR 104 has evolved over the past two years and the progress that has been made on the corridor’s Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). Under the new NEPA pilot process, a team approach is being used for the day-to-day management and delivery of the SR 104 project. This team is called the Project Management Team (PMT). The Steering Committee on the SR 104 project includes a wide range of representation from local, state, and federal agencies, tribal governments, special interest groups, commuters, and the general public. The committee is key to this new process. Success will lie in the ability of this group to overcome major philosophical differences through discussions and compromise. The opportunity for these regulatory agencies to share their views and hear the views from other agencies and the public at an early stage in the planning process has resulted in great benefits. Under this new process, the Steering Committee has adopted a new form of Purpose and Need Statement composed of two short paragraphs: the need for the project and its purpose. All other information about the route is to be contained in the statement’s supporting data. Drawing key elements from the purpose and need, the Steering Committee developed a set of screening criteria and measures of effectiveness. Committee representatives helped the PMT with the long and arduous task of rating the alternatives. The new process also requires that an interdisciplinary Value Analysis (VA) Team review the proposed improvement alternatives before the EIS is completed. A number of committee members took part in that effort. The SR 104 EIS project has just completed a major milestone and is ready to launch the research and analysis phase of the Draft EIS. The principal focus of this process improvement is to use the NEPA principles much earlier in the planning process in order to have decisions that “stick” for the many years it will take to implement all of the recommended strategies for the corridor. The goal of the process is to make good decisions for the corridor, ones that meet the conflicting needs of all stakeholders to the maximum extent possible, and to record the decisions in a planning and NEPA document that will provide guidance for the next twenty years of multimodal transportation work on the corridor.

01042451

English

10p

2000

Seventh National Conference on Transportation Planning for Small and Medium-Sized Communities

CD-ROM

Committees; Commuters; Decision making; Environmental impact statements; Environmental streamlining; Federal government agencies; Interest groups; Local government agencies; Multimodal transportation; Project management; Public participation; Regulation; Stakeholders; State government agencies; Strategic planning; Transportation planning; Tribal government

National Environmental Policy Act of 1969

Interdisciplinary approach; Project team

Washington (State)

Administration and Management; Highways; Passenger Transportation; Planning and Forecasting; Policy; Society; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning

TRIS, TRB

Feb 28 2007 4:47PM

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