Assessment Points Out Need for An Infrastructure for Transportation Collaboration
The team found that political leadership plays a critical role in promoting collaboration around transportation issues. They identified a number of examples where elected officials have promoted collaborative action around transportation. For example, in North Carolina the Transportation Secretary, with the blessing of the governor, created an Interagency Leadership team. In Massachusetts, the governor created the Office of Commonwealth Development to better coordinate policies and programs of the Transportation, Environmental Affairs, and Housing and Community Development agencies. In Utah, private sector leadership joined with the governor in a partnership, “Envision Utah,” to guide development of a broad publicly supported strategy to preserve critical lands, promote water conservation and clean air, provide housing options and improve region-wide transportation systems.
The interviews highlighted the benefits of developing these kinds of on-going mechanisms to foster transportation collaboration. For example, Utah created a high-level interagency team, composed of the directors of leading transportation planning and resource agencies, that has been instrumental in developing collaborative approaches in project planning for the Legacy Parkway. The North Carolina Interagency Team and the Massachusetts Office of Commonwealth Development are examples of how state government can create the infrastructure for coordination and collaboration. The report notes that these structures should be continued, and enhanced, in order to realize their full potential.
NPCC assessment teams involve people with extensive experience in state government, the issue area, and use of collaborative practices. This team included Greg Wolf, NPCC Director and former transportation adviser to Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber; Bill Blosser, a former state agency director and consultant with CH2M Hill; Susan Brody, a former member of the Oregon Transportation Commission who also directed the Oregon land use agency; and Bob Jones, Director of the Florida Conflict Resolution Consortium who, for over ten years, has worked with Florida transportation agency as they have developed collaborative governance mechanisms.