A New Route to Complete Streets? Using the TCAPP Model in Grand Rapids, Minnesota (2013) / Chapter Skim
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Pages 5-35
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Contents 1 Executive Summary 4 Introduction 4 Project Context: About Grand Rapids and Complete Streets 5 Project Partners 6 The Planning Challenge Addressed by the TCAPP Collaborative Process 7 Description of the Test & Summary of Outcomes by TCAPP Task 13 The TCAPP Collaboration Assessment 15 Stakeholder Involvement 16 Assessment of TCAPP 16 Proposed TCAPP Augmentations 29 Advisory Evaluation Team 29 Conclusions
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1 Executive Summary Introduction The fundamental purpose and goal of this pilot test was to evaluate and propose enhancements to the Transportation for Communities - Advancing Projects through Partnerships (TCAPP) collaborative planning tool.
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2 and pedestrian) ; address the specific needs of system users of all types, ages, and abilities and to promote broad public benefits including physical activity, environmental quality, and quality of life for citizens and visitors.
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3 • Itasca Community College • Blandin Foundation Assessment of TCAPP This section of the report contains 18 of the more substantive recommendations for modifying the TCAPP site that our project team identified throughout the process. This section also includes a table (pages 27 and 28)
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4 Introduction The fundamental purpose and goal of this pilot test was to evaluate and propose enhancements to the TCAPP collaborative planning tool. The project team utilized the tool from December, 2010, through April, 2012, to guide much of the planning activities in the development of a Complete Streets planning process in the City of Grand Rapids, Minnesota.
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5 Figure 1. Complete Streets includes connections between recreation areas, major destinations, and transportation corridors.
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6 engineering staff, the Bike and Pedestrian Unit, and the Transit Office. The City of Grand Rapids, led by the City Engineer and his staff, along with the staff from Community Development and Parks and Recreation were integral to all facets of the initiative.
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7 • Pedestrian and bike access to major destinations (schools, parks, beaches, library, job centers) is limited.
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8 of stakeholders. Collaboration was required both early in the process and also throughout the entire planning process in order to reach consensus on goals and solutions that take into account the historical, cultural, and natural resources of the city.
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9 Key Outcome: TCAPP was used extensively as a tool to identify initial stakeholder concerns and design the focus group meetings. The Decision Guide was very useful in this endeavor because it provided comprehensive lists of potential questions to be posed in the stakeholder meetings and the focus groups under the "Decision-Making Questions" tab for LRP-2 and COR-3.
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10 Subsequently, we used the Decision Guide to develop the scope for the planning process, which was a two-faceted approach: on the one hand, to create a clear "Complete Streets" plan that could apply to the entire city, while also focusing on several specific problem areas where TCAPP and Complete Streets principles could be applied in a detailed fashion.
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11 • LRP-7 Approve Plan Scenarios Key Outcome: The project team, working in close collaboration with partners, and with ongoing input from the stakeholders, developed a list of "solutions" that proposed broad strategies, system-wide treatments, and site-specific improvements. Throughout this entire process, almost constant communication among all project partners and technical experts (city engineers, state traffic engineers, modal experts)
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12 popular recreational destination, as well as improving water quality in Crystal Lake. (This project requires approval by the Itasca County Agricultural Board, which has reservations about the project.)
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13 • Priority will be given to streets with higher traffic volumes, speeds, and/or high pedestrian crashes. • Priority will be given to achieving sidewalks on at least one side of the street initially.
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14 city's quality of life. Therefore, our findings from the TCAPP Collaboration Assessment mostly merely affirmed what we already knew – that there would not be a great deal of controversy or opposition to the ideas and improvements that were being proposed, and that, for the most part, the test could focus on the specific steps and guidance within TCAPP to proceed on developing a Complete Streets plan with confidence that project stakeholders would be willing to collaborate and that agreement would ultimately be achieved.
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15 Stakeholder Involvement TCAPP identifies stakeholders as those parties who may be affected by a transportation plan, program, or project. The list below identifies the most active stakeholders and their specific interest in the planning process.
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16 Itasca Community College was another very active participant in the process. The school has 1,200 students, many of whom use a bicycle or walking as their only mode of transportation.
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17 term "Corridor Planning" as one of the four principle modules. The discussion was based on the Minnesota team's original work plan which identified applicable decision points in both the Corridor Planning module as well as the Long Range Transportation Planning module.
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18 3. At issue: The TCAPP model tab called Integration contains two tables.
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19 "Outcome" articulated on the Basics tab – or even the "Purpose" on the Basics tab, might provide a better description of the steps currently articulated by the name of the decision points than the names of the decision points themselves. We recommend consideration of organizing supporting information contained in all the tabs under the "objective" rather than the more static decision point.
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20 Proposed Value-Added TCAPP Augmentation: There is ample guidance contained in the TCAPP model regarding what each of the decision points is intended to address and accomplish, however, the Minnesota research team believes that there might be an opportunity to build in a system that will help agencies that are new to TCAPP to understand how the "flexibility" of the tool, insofar as it can provide guidance on multiple "modules" (our term for the four broad planning areas – LRP, PRO, COR, and ENV) within the same project.
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21 participants have shown their "true colors" – may not reveal potential issues that may arise later in the process. Proposed Value-Added TCAPP Augmentation: The TCAPP site does a commendable job of identifying the potential problems that can result from a planning process that does not adequately promote collaboration.
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22 All of these elements are contained in the TCAPP website, but they seem to be delivered – as one participant in a TCAPP user group conference call noted – "through a fire hose" which is difficult for a new user to digest and absorb.
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23 stakeholders who should also be involved in the process. A second meeting will bring together all of the project stakeholders to solicit their input on "problem statements and opportunities." Each of these processes (the partner meeting and the stakeholder meeting)
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24 Questions" tab, but insufficient specific guidelines on what might be the proper forum to ask or collect data on those questions. Proposed Value-Added TCAPP Augmentation: Perhaps the TCAPP developers did not feel compelled to offer extensive guidance on the subject because identifying community "interests" is such a common activity for planners, but the Minnesota Project Team dedicated quite a bit of energy to these functions, primarily by using a series of focus groups targeting a wide variety of stakeholders and system users to get as complete a picture as possible on the vision, goals, concerns, and needs of the community.
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25 We recommend that these factors at least be discussed when planning authorities begin to identify when and how various agencies and other entities should be involved in order to optimize collaboration throughout the planning process. The Decision Guide "Basics" Tab and Link 16.
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26 Key Decision Tabs and Tables – Miscellaneous 18. At issue: Under the direction of Beverly Bowen of ICFI, the TCAPP user focus group undertook a thorough review of the functionality and utility of all of the tables contained within each of the tables contained in the tabs (Basics, Integration, DecisionMaking Questions, Case Study Examples, Technical Support, and Special Topics)
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27 Table 2. Review of Key Decision Data Tab/Table The tabs/tables listed below correspond to the detailed information found by clicking on each key decision.
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28 Table 2. Review of Key Decision Data (continued)
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29 Advisory Evaluation Team An additional activity that the project team incorporated into the TCAPP evaluation process was to convene a series of evaluation team meetings throughout the project. The researchers from the Humphrey School's State and Local Policy Program assembled a team with expertise in evaluating public and stakeholder involvement processes for significant transportation projects, including the Interstate 394 High Occupancy/Toll (HOT)
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30 decision-making authority being placed in multiple offices at multiple locations, created a new opportunity for the project team to apply steps from the Decision Guide to intra-departmental decisions. Similarly, the team found that the Decision Guide steps could be applied effectively at the "micro" (project level)
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