Making Mobility Improvements a Community Asset
Record Type: UTC

The vast majority of major mobility improvements are desired by communities in which they are made, but major projects are often opposed by vocal opponents local to the projects. This opposition causes delays, rework, increased costs, and sometimes a tarnished image for the sponsoring agency. While environmental analyses were added to the project development process to respond to many of the objections, opposition (and delays and extra costs) continues, especially for major projects. Context sensitive solutions (CSS) grew out of a national symposium (Thinking Beyond the Pavement) to develop an approach to help make major mobility improvements more compatible, more supportive and more acceptable to communities. Use of the CSS approach – involving stakeholders in project development from the beginning – was included in SAFETEA-LU as a policy. However, implementation at the state level has been inconsistent, and a 2007 audit of states showed that only nine states (plus District of Columbia) have integrated CSS into their ongoing processes, while 15 states, including Texas, have yet to make a real start. This project is developing and disseminating knowledge, experiences, reasons to use and benefits of CSS through university courses and technology transfer to assist agencies to start using CSS to facilitate community acceptance of mobility improvement projects.
Start date: 2008/1/1
End date: 2009/11/30
Status: Completed
Contract/Grant Number: DTRT06-G-0044
Secondary Number: 00012
Total Dollars: 154630
Source Organization: University Transportation Center for Mobility
Date Added: 03/04/2008
Index Terms: Mobility, Communities, Context sensitive design, Context sensitive solutions, Improvements, Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users, Technology transfer, Texas, Research projects,

University Transportation Center for Mobility
http://utcm.tamu.edu
Texas Transportation Institute
Texas A&M University System
3135 TAMU
College Station, TX 77843-3135
USA
Phone: (979) 845-2538
Fax: (979) 845-9761

Tooley, Melissa S
Phone: (979) 845-8545
Fax: (979) 845-9761
Email: m-tooley@tamu.edu

Texas Transportation Institute
http://tti.tamu.edu
Texas A&M University System
3135 TAMU
College Station, TX 77843-3135
USA

Texas A&M University, College Station
http://civil.tamu.edu
Zachry Department of Civil Engineering
3136 TAMU
College Station, TX 77843-3136
USA

Bochner, Brian
Phone: (979) 458-3516
Fax: (979) 845-7548
Email: b-bochner@ttimail.tamu.edu

Lord, Dominique
Phone: (979) 458-3949
Email: d-lord@ttimail.tamu.edu