INNOVATIVE PLANNING PRACTICES

OVERVIEW

The Multi-Modal Planning at the Multi-Jurisdictional Scale project includes multiple resources for planners seeking to improve collaborative planning across multiple planning topic areas, geographies, and modes. These resources will help planners develop collaborative practices and guide strategic planning efforts for multi-jurisdictional projects. This research supports FHWA’s Megaregions portfolio, which promotes efficiency and regional cooperation by identifying best transportation planning practices for key stakeholders seeking to work across jurisdictional boundaries. Megaregion planning is inherently collaborative and emphasizes connectivity through and between stakeholders on environmental, economic, cultural, and infrastructure topics. This project complements existing megaregion research and planning efforts by reinforcing the significant benefits of multi-jurisdictional planning and identifying lessons learned for future cooperative efforts.

The following resources contain small case studies, or profiles, of areas of the country where multiple MPOs have sustained collaborative planning efforts for more than a decade. This project was made possible with funding from FHWA to the American Planning Association (APA) and Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech); APA and Georgia Tech completed the project in February 2020.

HOW DO THESE RESOURCES HELP PLANNERS INNOVATE?

• Multi-MPO Planning: A Transportation Practitioner’s Guide provides information on how to build the technical, institutional, and policy capacity of transportation planning organizations to operationalize collaborative planning across multiple MPO planning areas. The Guide includes an introduction to multi-MPO planning and describes the unique benefits and potential challenges to multi-MPO coordination.
• Metrics for Evaluating Multi-MPO Collaboration explores how multiple MPOs can measure progress in achieving interregional planning and programming goals. The report provides a summary analysis of the state of the practice, with a focus on federal requirements for performance-based transportation planning, and a potential framework for measuring interregional collaboration and interregional transportation system performance.
• Sustaining Multi-MPO Collaboration explores the mechanisms and conditions that facilitate collaboration between or among multiple neighboring or proximate MPOs. It provides a summary analysis of the state of the practice and discusses programs and practices that can help strengthen and maximize the value of multi-MPO collaboration.
• The Role of Interregional Issues in Multi-MPO Collaboration provides guidance and information on the specific issues and conditions that motivate long-range planning collaboration between or among multiple neighboring or proximate MPOs. It includes a summary analysis of the state of the practice and discusses specific issue areas that seem the most likely to motivate collaboration between or among MPOs.

OVERVIEW

The Next Generation Scenario Planning Report: A Transportation Practitioner’s Guide provides information on how to scope and design a scenario planning process to best meet the needs or challenges of a community or organization. It includes a summary of the different kinds of scenario futures—probable, desired, and exploratory—and describes how those can be used to address common issues facing transportation organizations. In a constantly changing world, scenario planning is an innovative and useful tool for planners to use to effectively consider multiple potential futures and their impacts.

HOW DOES THE REPORT HELP PLANNERS INNOVATE?

• Emphasizes the importance of clearly setting expectations about the purpose, goals and expected outcomes of a scenario planning process.
• Includes real-world, recent examples of addressing emerging trends, crafting a new vision or desired future, and dealing with uncertainty.
• Provides practitioners with an expansive list of “how-to’s” and a menu of options for incorporating scenario-based planning into the transportation planning processes.
• Enhances the knowledge base of practitioners by offering key considerations for designing a scenario-based process, which leads to informed decision making, resilient plan making, effective plan implementation, and thoughtful consensus building.

OVERVIEW

“Walk. Bike. Thrive!” is a regional walking and biking transportation plan for the Atlanta region and another 2017 TPEA award winner. Adopted in 2016, “Walk, Bike, Thrive!” serves as the active transportation component of the Atlanta Regional Commission's (ARC) long-range transportation plan for the Atlanta Metropolitan Region. This plan may act as a model for communities nation-wide that want to make their regions more bicycle- and pedestrian-friendly.

Source: Atlanta Regional Commission

WHAT MAKES THE PROJECT INNOVATIVE?

• The Plan acknowledges the role of both local and regional frameworks of governance to create a strong and coordinated vision for the future. Regional planning allows for connectivity throughout Metro Atlanta, while local planning capitalizes on the expertise of communities to implement effective and place-based networks. Specifically:
  • Project prioritization and the distribution of MPO and federal funding is based on a regional framework for walking and biking.
  • A local toolkit provides information for local communities to build safe, high-quality pedestrian and bicycle networks with policy and program support. The toolkit can be used when localities request MPO funds, develop projects using local funding, and adopt policies relevant to local needs.
• Plan development was guided by a wide range of public input from across the region, including regional surveys, first-person interviews, and regional forums with existing advisory groups.

The regional plan can be accessed here.