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Planning & Environment Linkages

Recent Developments

Listed below are recent developments pertinent to environmental considerations in planning from the past six months.  If you would like to suggest a recent development on this topic, please submit a short description to AASHTO (including any pertinent links) on the Share Info with AASHTO form.

• FHWA Issues Report on Freight and Land Use Travel Demand

  FHWA Issues Report on Freight and Land Use Travel Demand

  The Federal Highway Administration has issued a report that identifies best practices and tools for better understanding how land use, local economic development, and demographic factors drive freight movement, trip generation, and freight demand analysis. The report looks at the changing definition of what constitutes freight, a broader audience for freight decision making, and some of the emerging topics in freight. Some of the recommendations from the project will be incorporated into an update to the Quick Response Freight Manual (QRFM). For more information, link to the report. (July 2019)

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• New Performance-Based Planning Case Studies Issued by FHWA

  New Performance-Based Planning Case Studies Issued by FHWA

  The Federal Highway Administration has issued four new case studies that provide lessons learned with regard to performance-based planning and programming, a strategic approach to planning in which data supports decisions that ultimately help to achieve performance goals. The new case studies discuss the data collection strategies, the selection of performance measures, and interagency collaboration practices from the Maricopa Association of Governments, San Diego Association of Governments, Lewis Clark Valley Metropolitan Planning Organization, and Rockingham Metropolitan Planning Organization, in Arizona, California, Idaho, and New Hampshire, respectively. For more information, link to the case studies. (6-17-19)

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• Researchers Develop Tool to Measure Effectiveness of Public Involvement

  Researchers Develop Tool to Measure Effectiveness of Public Involvement

  A toolkit to measure the effectiveness of public involvement in transportation have been developed under the National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP Research Report 905, Project 08-105). The toolkit, which includes survey instruments, a scoring tool, and guidelines for use, is designed to collect feedback from the public on several indicators of effectiveness and compare that feedback with the transportation agency’s perceptions. The combined responses then can be used to compare the effectiveness of different public involvement strategies over time. For more information, link to the report. (5-6-19)

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• Newsletter Highlights Use of Eco-Logical for Project Delivery

  Newsletter Highlights Use of Eco-Logical for Project Delivery

  The state of the practice in use of the Eco-Logical landscape approach to infrastructure planning is outlined in the Jan. 2019 issue of Federal Highway Administration’s Successes in Stewardship newsletter. The issue provides examples of the Eco-Logical approach and its benefits, agencies that are using the approach, and ways it can be used to accelerate project delivery. For more information, link to the newsletter. (1-8-19)

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