Transportation for Communities - Advancing Projects Through Partnerships

Active use of Collaboration Assessment

Several of the pilot tests are using the assessment feature of TCAPP to compare their current process to one that is highly collaborative. It would be interesting to know what has been learned so far.

Re: Active use of Collaboration Assessment

WSDOT is one of the agencies selected to participate in this pilot test. Our pilot test is to apply decision making tools developed under the Corridor Planning to the SR 509 Corridor Completion Project (a missing freeway link). The goal of this pilot test is to demonstrate how these tools help facilitate the project stakeholders and our local partners in making the following key decisions in order to move the project forward:

• Define Phase 1 of the Project for implementation by taking tolling into consideration.
• Contingent on additional funding from the 2011 Washington State legislature, make recommendation on a preferred tolling option for legislative consideration.

The SR 509 Project is "ready to go" with preliminary design completed and a Record of Decision (ROD) issued in 2003. The Project was originally developed under a toll free assumption. With tolling coming into the picture, the project (or Phase 1) is expected to be smaller than originally envisioned, delivering a subset of previously identified benefits, causing a subset of identified impacts, and costing less than the original project. This pilot test is to use the TCAPP Corridor Planning protocol, working collaboratively with the stakeholders to define the scope of Phase 1 and identify a preferred tolling strategy if additional funding from the State is available.
So far we found the information provided on the website to be very helpful. We have used tools and techniques in, among other things:

• Setting up stakeholder committees to ensure different interest groups are fully represented to minimize the risks and potential re-do loops later;
• Conducting stakeholder satisfaction surveys to gauge how the process is going

We also found that the website can be improved to be more user friendly. Suggested improvements include making web content and forms downloadable that can be used as handouts or reference cards; enabling multiple user data entry on the survey forms to tally and summarize results; and providing more subject specific examples such as multiple sets of sample project goals and vision statements and alternative evaluation criteria, etc.

We'd be interested in learning the insights gained from the other pilot tests.