Innovative Public Engagement Techniques for Transportation Projects

Have you ever wondered how you could more effectively engage the public and stakeholders in transportation projects? Well here is your opportunity to see, hear, and touch the latest interactive public engagement tools being used by transportation professionals. This presentation will discuss the “Bottom Up” approach for developing transportation projects and effectively engaging the public in the development, screening, and selection of a preferred plan. You will get to see many of the tools used in the “Bottom Up” approach, including:

• Storyboarding the Process to the Public
• Maintaining Transparency
• Alternative Development Tools that you can see, hear, and touch
• Staging Venues for Optimal Performance
• Virtual Open Houses
• Interactive 3-D Models
• Demonstration Projects prior to selection and implementation
• Transportation Fairs
• Multi-agency collaboration
• Adopted Dynamic Transportation Plans

Marc Butorac and Anne Brooks will engage you in an interactive presentation where you can both participate and also share your own successes in engaging the public on transportation related projects.

Registration & networking begins at 10:45 a.m. and the TES workshop will start promptly at 11 a.m. and run to 1 p.m. on April 9th. Refreshments will be served as well. There is no cost to attend this session and the workshop is equal to 2.0 professional development hours (PDH).

If you have any questions regarding this event, please contact Gary Katsion, the Anchorage Office Manager, at (907) 646-7995. We hope you can join us for this informative workshop on this fun and engaging topic.

About the Speakers:

Marc Butorac, PE, PTOE Senior Principal Engineer, Kittelson & Associates

Marc’s experience in the "Bottom Up" public engagement process has come through his management and oversight of numerous transportation system plans, corridor and access management plans, and interchange area management plans (IAMPs) across the nation, as well as his involvement in Transportation Research Board’s visualization, access management, and public involvement committees. This experience has been further bolstered by his NCHRP research on public involvement in access management related projects, including NCHRP 3-99 Development and Application of Access Management Guidelines and NCHRP Synthesis 332 Access Location in Crossroads in the Vicinity of Interchanges. Through these experiences he has developed and refined processes that allow property and business owners, users of the facilities, and decision makers to effectively understand the issues, develop and compare alternatives, and selected preferred solutions. As part of these processes, Marc has developed and incorporated numerous low and high-tech engagement tools over the past decade that range from tactical learning models to virtual open houses.

Anne Brooks, PE Owner, Brooks and Associates, Anchorage, AK

Anne brings 20 years of Alaska public involvement experience to the workshop. Anne's demonstrated new ways of transportation connecting planning and design projects with the public and fostering “community” in public participation. Her experience as an engineer in public involvement shoes reveals that the public does not readily accept engineering solutions today as in the past. Today the public tends to be more “me” focused and our solutions encounter more “not in my back yard” or “nimby” sentiment, a phenomenon that dictates new and innovative approaches. She introduced multi-project meetings, a kindergarten through 12th grade student project in rural Alaska and enhanced communications for design projects. The projects incorporate strategies and tools to bring public participation in developing engineering solutions on their own terms and in their own language. These contributions enhance acceptance of process outcomes and decision sustainability.

Event Materials