Practices for Online Public Involvement (2019)

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A-1 AASHTO. State DOT Social Media Survey. Washington, D.C., June 2017. The 2017 State DOT Social Media Survey indicates that the use of some kind of online social media tools has become standard business practice for state departments of transportation. However, while the use of these online tools is generally accepted, the ways in which state DOTs use the tools varies greatly, as does the types of tools each state uses. Arnstein, S. R. A Ladder of Citizen Participation. Journal of the American Institute of Planners, Vol. 35, No. 4, July 1969, pp. 216–224. Arnstein’s “Ladder of Citizen Participation” examines the ways in which public involvement methodologies allow for differing levels of public ownership and input of urban issues. This piece of literature lays the groundwork for public involvement and the importance of state and city agencies to not just inform, but allow for the public to become active stakeholders. Arnstein’s ladder classifies participation from the lowest levels of non-participatory engagement to engagement that allows for citizen empowerment in the planning process. Barron, E., S. Peck, M. Venner, and W. Malley. “NCHRP Project 25-25/Task 80, Suggested Practices Guidance Resource.” Sept. 2013. This resource is a guide for implementing social media during the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) process and includes a checklist of considerations such as tool selection, agency guidelines, protocols, and strategies for effective social media outreach. Burby, R. Making Plans That Matter: Citizen Involvement and Government Action. Journal of the American Planning Association, Vol. 69, No. 1, 2003, pp. 33–40. Burby examined how the current involvement practices (of 2003) are ineffective in reaching the broader stakeholder audience that agencies seek. He analyzed data from agencies in Washington state and Florida and made policy recommendations to improve their services. Burby shows that business groups accounted for 75% of the planning participants. Seventy- two percent were local elected officials, and 68% were development groups. Elderly populations accounted for 15% and people with disabilities represented only 5%. Burby observed that traditional forms of planning public engagement are dominated by the “iron triangle”—local business and development, neighborhood groups, and local elected/appointed officials. All of these work toward a corporate goal and have little impact on the day-to-day life of community members. Broader participation should incorporate people outside of the traditional outreach groupings. These people must be included even though they have less political power in the sphere of influence that governs public participation. A P P E N D I X A Annotated Bibliography

A-2 Practices for Online Public Involvement Cascetta, E., A. Cartenì, F. Pagliara, and M. Montanino, A New Look at Planning and Designing Transporta- tion Systems: A Decision-Making Model Based on Cognitive Rationality, Stakeholder Engagement and Quantitative Methods. Transport Policy, Vol. 38, 2015, pp. 27–39. Cascetta et al. observe the gaps between the transportation decision-making process and research that analyzes rational decision-making and cognitive processes. Cascetta and his fellow researchers suggest a decision-making process that follows a cognitive rational approach— a higher level of stakeholder engagement that allows for citizens to quantitatively engage with data presented in the transportation modeling. Cascetta et al. also suggest that quantitative methods can be used not only for transportation modeling but also for the planning of the engagement process. Cascetta, E., and F. Pagliara. Public Engagement for Planning and Designing Transportation Systems. Procedia- Social and Behavioral Sciences, Vol. 87, 2013, pp. 103–116. Cascetta and Pagliara make observations about a common model of transportation public involvement that they call DAD (Decide, Announce, Defend). This model does not encourage much citizen participation, as many major decisions have already been made and the transporta- tion agency is only responsible for fielding questions and concerns about an impending project. Cascetta and Pagliara point out that community resistance can have a negative impact on the project, plan, or agency as a whole. Using Campania, Italy, as an example, the researchers detail a transportation planning process that solicited the input of residents in the community early in the planning process, and suggest forging community partnerships, strategically using context-specific public involvement tools, and giving citizens power by allowing them to deem a project “useful” (or not) to encourage planners to be more invested in the public involvement process. Colorado Department of Transportation Division of Transportation Development, Innovative Public Involve- ment Technology: Research and Implementation Study. Denver, July 2010. By interviewing various state departments of transportation, transit agencies, and MPOs, the authors found consensus in the varying technologies that are in use: surveys, websites, social media, mapping, wiki tool, etc. However, these technologies and platforms are not being uniformly used. The barriers to implementing many of these strategies include the challenges of influencing DOT staff and the cost involved in targeting specific communities or groups. Davidoff, P. Advocacy and Pluralism in Planning. Journal of the American Institute of Planners, Vol. 31, No. 4, 1965, pp. 331–338. Davidoff’s piece of literature on the political processes of planning and public involvement emphasizes the challenges toward making planning a democratic process and provides sugges- tions on how it can be more democratic. Davidoff identifies planners as advocates for govern- ment agencies, the public, and other groups. In doing so they should also present multiple plans and options to the public. As such, the field of planning can become an arena where the public could be informed and provide input on decisions being made. Davis, D., J. Meyer, A. Singh, M. Wright, and P. Zykofsky. Participation Tools for Better Community Planning, 2nd ed. Local Government Commission, Sacramento, CA, 2013. This publication is a broad manual on the basic principles of engagement planning. It pro- vides a documentation of the current standard for traditional public participation practices in transportation planning across the country. De Luca, S. Public Engagement in Strategic Transportation Planning: An Analytic Hierarchy Process Based Approach. Transport Policy, Vol. 33, 2014, pp. 110–124. De Luca examines the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) approach to participatory planning and stresses the importance of quantifying the participation process so that better analytics can

Annotated Bibliography A-3 be implemented by planners to improve the planning outcomes. The researchers quantify these participation processes through a “multiple criteria decision analysis” based on AHP. The meth- odologies included a survey of 500 participants in Salerno, Italy. Evans-Cowley, J., and J. Hollander. The New Generation of Public Participation: Internet-based Participation Tools. Planning Practice and Research, Vol. 25, No. 3, 2010, pp. 397–408. Evans-Cowley and Hollander looked closely at Aspen, Colorado, and Austin, Texas, to examine how communities with active public participation were able to deliver their messages to elected officials. The key difference was that Aspen had a vocal public that met mostly offline, while Austin’s heaviest public participation was almost entirely online. The researchers noticed that Aspen’s public groups were taken more seriously by planners and that they were shown to have a greater impact on the planning process. Conversely in Austin, the Facebook groups of community members were able to reach more people and expose planning issues to a broader reach of people in the community. However, planners in Austin took little interest in it, and it did not result in strong offline civic participation in the planning process. Kaplan, A., and M. Haenlin. Users of the World, Unite! The Challenges and Opportunities of Social Media. Busi- ness Horizons, Vol. 53, 2010, pp. 59–68. Kaplan and Haenlin aim to define social media. While social media is often used inter- changeably with Web 2.0 and “User Generated Content,” neither is an accurate synonym. The authors highlight how social media serves an additional purpose of providing communication and connection that is not present in other digital platforms. This has allowed for innovative usages in the business world, and the authors make a few general suggestions about how the online tools can be beneficially harnessed in planning as well. Kavanaugh, A. L. et al. Social Media Use by Government: From the Routine to the Critical. Government Infor- mation Quarterly, Vol. 29, 2012, pp. 480–491. These researchers examined emergency services and how online strategies are extraordinarily helpful in disseminating information during critical times. Using Arlington, Virginia, as an example, the researchers determined that despite the “noise” that comes from people using social media, it also generates a large amount of information during a crisis situation. However, hiring staff who are dedicated to monitoring social media from citizens is timely and costly. In 2010, the research from the article confirmed that a majority of the local government communications officers were not comfortable with social media; however, a minority of local government communications officers were already incorporating Hootsuite and TweetDeck into their practices (indicating some social media data analysis). Landsbergen, D. Government as Part of the Revolution: Using Social Media to Achieve Public Goals. Electronic Journal of e-Government, Vol. 8, No. 2, 2010, pp. 135–147. Past trends indicate that social media tools are used for information dissemination and not their Web 2.0 capabilities. Creating plans involving risk, strategy, and maintaining goals with data-driven outcomes may help make improvements to these shortcomings. Landsbergen used interviews with city officials across numerous departments in Columbus, Ohio, as well as examining the social strategies used by city agencies in these departments, to determine if they aligned with the definitions of Web 2.0. Li, M., and M. Feeney. Adoption of Electronic Technologies in Local U.S. Governments: Distinguishing Between E-Services and Communication Technologies. American Review of Public Administration, Vol. 44, No. 1, 2014, pp. 75–91. Li and Feeney survey local government officials regarding the adoption of two types of government technology strategies: e-services and communications. The authors note that citizen demand was a factor for local government implementation of online communication.

A-4 Practices for Online Public Involvement The authors also distinguish between one-way and two-way communication but conclude that both are brought on by public demand. Manetti, G., M. Bellucci, and L. Bagnoli. Stakeholder Engagement and Public Information Through Social Media: A Study of Canadian and American Public Transportation Agencies. American Review of Public Administra- tion, Vol. 47, No. 8, 2017, pp. 991–1009. These researchers examined the literature on Web 2.0 engagement practices and how there is often a gap in the public sector between Web 2.0 and simple information dissemination. The researchers analyzed Facebook posts and tweets from public transit agencies in North America to observe trends to determine when there were true public participation and Web 2.0 practices and when it was simply information dissemination. Almost all transit agencies have a presence on Facebook or Twitter, but their usage varied greatly between the two mediums. The authors emphasized that there is some type of stakeholder engagement on Facebook, but it remains to be seen if it is truly helpful and engaging. The authors attribute this to the more complex interface of Facebook, which allows for more nuanced responses and interactions. During the time of this research, the authors noticed that 24.88% of Facebook posts were aimed at true stakeholder engagement and participation, while only 17.28% of Twitter posts used the same strategy. Conversely, information dissemination accounted for 34.94% of the Facebook posts and 61.99% of Twitter posts. McAndrews, C., and J. Marcus. The Politics of Collective Public Participation in Transportation Decision- Making. Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Vol. 78, 2015, pp. 537–550. McAndrews and Marcus examined the influence of collective public participation, as opposed to traditional public participation of individual voices being heard in a community- wide forum. The case followed the expansion of Verona Road in the greater Madison, Wisconsin, area and the impacts it would have on transportation planning. The researchers sought to expand the traditional framework of public involvement to more successfully create dialogue with the public. McAndrews and Marcus studied this particular case through public hearings, interviews, and group discussions. They also interviewed planners. Meijer, A., and M. Thaens. Social Media Strategies: Understanding the Differences Between North American Police Departments. Government Information Quarterly, Vol. 30, 2013, pp. 343–350. Social media can be impactful if implemented within the right “fertile ground.” Meijer and Thaens imply that social media should be taken seriously by the entire agency and be an important component of community engagement with strategy and policy that is community-focused. An agency needs an institutional culture that is ready to take on the challenge and prepared to take feedback from its constituents. Meijer and Thaens examined social media usage by police departments in Boston; Washington, D.C.; and Toronto, categorizing them into push (one-way information to constituents in Boston), push/pull (two-way exchange with constituents in Washington, D.C.), and networking (individual officers represent themselves on social media to engage directly with the public in Toronto). The authors determined that Toronto, which trains the police officers on social media practices in messaging and allows them to engage directly with the public, achieves genuine Web 2.0 activities by removing the filter and added level of a communications department. Moore, K. R. Public Engagement in Environmental Impact Studies: A Case Study of Professional Communication in Transportation Planning. IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication, Vol. 59, No. 3, Sept. 2016, pp. 245–260. Moore conducted a case study of a professional communications firm advising a local trans- portation agency in public engagement for an environmental impact study. The communi- cations firm worked in an Illinois community being considered for rail improvements. The communication practices showed a gap in active online engagement. Social media and a website

Annotated Bibliography A-5 were the tactics used by a consulting firm. Moore points out that working in public engagement is challenging for planners because it does not involve the technical language and the narrow audiences that consultants, government, and engineers are familiar with. Moore also observed that the communications team was pushing the transportation agency away from looking at the public in a singular fashion. In addition, Moore noted that the goal of the agency and commu- nications firm was to involve as many people in the process as possible. Social media was used only to get the word out about public meetings and events. Morris, A., and L. Fragala. NCHRP Synthesis 407: Effective Public Involvement Using Limited Resources. Transportation Research Board of the National Academies, Washington, D.C., 2010. Using a detailed phone interview/survey, data were collected concerning the ability of local governments, DOTs, and public agencies to engage the public through nontraditional means that allow for cost-effectiveness due to limited budgets. The researchers examined case studies in Missouri advertising internet surveys that reached more constituents and increased oppor- tunities for feedback. Nash, A. Web 2.0 Applications for Improving Public Participation in Transport Planning. Proceedings of the Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C., Jan. 10–14, 2010. Nash’s writing provides a newer perspective for Web 2.0 usage and analysis. Nash analyzed current tools and made policy recommendations to the FTA’s New Starts Program. His recom- mendations include the following: • Encouraging transportation agencies to use more interactive social media that allows communication (two-way) and not just information dissemination. • Classifying public engagement levels for how much content or input the public is able to contribute to transportation agencies about planning. This varies from lower levels of par- ticipation that are for citizen information and higher levels of participation that more actively seek stakeholder contributions. • Suggestions for tools that can be used at each level of participation. Picazo-Vela, S., I. Gutiérrez-Martínez, and L. F. Luna-Reyes. Understanding Risks, Benefits, and Strategic Alter- natives of Social Media Applications in the Public Sector. Government Information Quarterly, Vol. 29, 2012, pp. 504–511. Picazo-Vela et al. gathered data through a public workshop that included 250 public servants in Mexico. The researchers noted risks, including poor technological infrastructure or knowl- edge, that could affect the delivery of social media. There is also risk that if there is inadequate government buy-in and insufficient data to present to the public, there can also be a risk of increased criticism and feedback. However, cited benefits included inclusion of periphery citi- zens, encouragement of a citizen participation culture, and improved two-way communication between the government and constituents. Purdy, S. J. Internet Use and Civic Engagement: A Structural Equation Approach. Computers in Human Behavior, Vol. 71, 2017, pp. 318–326. Purdy examined existing literature, survey data, and internet content to explore impactful strategies for online civic engagement. Purdy contrasts two schools of thought in his literature review: utopians, who believe that the internet will improve engagement and activism, and dystopians, who correlate lower civic engagement with the rise of the internet. Purdy’s subjects were undergraduate students at a midwestern public university. His survey data showed that increased online political engagement (measured through likes, comments, petitions, posts, follows) correlated with a positive relationship to offline willingness to participate in civic activities. Conversely, an increase in purely social online activity saw a decrease in the willingness to participate in online civic activities. Purdy also examined the difference between online and offline civic discussion and found similar trends with increased online civic discussion

A-6 Practices for Online Public Involvement leading to an increase in offline discussion. Purdy stressed the importance of targeted discus- sion if impactful and meaningful conversations are to be transferred from the internet to an offline forum. Seltzer, E., and D. Mahmoudi. Citizen Participation, Open Innovation and Crowdsourcing: Challenges and Opportunities for Planning. Journal of Planning Literature, Vol. 28, No. 1, 2012, pp. 3–18. Seltzer and Mahmoudi addressed the gap in crowdsourcing use between the public and private sectors. Crowdsourcing could be a cost-effective measure to improve citizen participa- tion in the government sector, just as corporations are able to improve their own products and services when they use the opinions and voices of consumers. Crowdsourcing was first identified by Jeffrey Howe in Wired magazine. Howe noted that problem-solving firms were no longer outsourcing the work abroad and instead turned to the internet for community ideas. Seltzer and Mahmoudi make clear that firms and planning agencies are different, and that crowd- sourcing and stakeholder participation are not the same. However, planners can borrow ideas from crowdsourcing, such as improved problem identification and the discovery of innovative solutions within the community. Sivarajah, U., Z. Irani, and V. Weerakkody. Evaluating the Use and Impact of Web 2.0 Technologies in Local Government. Government Information Quarterly, Vol. 32, 2015, pp. 473–487. Sivarajah et al. note that the use of social media is important for making a transparent and efficient government and civil society. However, this only works when there are active agents from both management and information technology (IT) working in tandem. The study identi- fied factors (benefits such as intra-marketing and informal engagement, costs such as workload constraints, and risks such as integration with other systems) as part of the evaluation criteria, which have not previously been discussed in the existing literature surrounding the context of Web 2.0 use in local government. To quantify the efficacy of Web 2.0 usage in social media, they surveyed public officials to understand how different agency officials feel about the roles they must take. While IT managers seemed to stress the importance of Web 2.0, website-specific managers did not stress benefits of Web 2.0 technologies. In addition, IT managers perceived less risk (such as reputation, legal, and security) than the other groups that were involved in Web 2.0 technology. Wagner, J. Measuring Performance of Public Engagement in Transportation Planning: Three Best Principles. Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, Vol. 2397, 2013, pp. 38–44. Wagner indicates agencies that want to improve public engagement practices should be out- come oriented. By closely examining existing practices, Wagner notes that processes currently in place put a higher value on the methodology and its ease of implementing, as opposed to the actual participation outcome. Wagner examined existing practices and literature on transpor- tation public participation to create scorecards that assessed an agency’s ability to engage, be accessible to a diverse group of stakeholders, and be outcome oriented. He assessed whether an agency’s efforts were outcome oriented based on stakeholders’ belief that their input was mean- ingful and incorporated into the planning process. He also assessed whether agencies defined a clear goal for incorporating public feedback into their planning process. Zavattaro, S. M., and A. J. Sementelli. A Critical Examination of Social Media Adoption in Government: Introducing Omnipresence. Government Information Quarterly, Vol. 31, 2014, pp. 257–264. Zavattarro and Sementelli examined existing literature and news reports to determine the negative externalities of social media usage in the public government sector. The researchers concluded that the digital platform may expand engagement capabilities and capacities of an agency, but due to the rapid expansion of the public sector into social media, they may lack the tools to expand social media in a meaningful way.