Public Involvement Case Study: Utah County 30-Year Transportation Study


Overview

In June 2001, the Utah Department of Transportation, Mountainland Association of Governments and Utah Transit Authority began to develop a plan for improving the I-15 corridor in Utah County. Wilkinson Ferrari & Co. was hired to work with stakeholders to identify the local and regional needs and develop an implementation plan for the next 30 years.

Challenges

With a large population and 20 cities, there were many diverse stakeholders with an interest in the planning effort. What is good for the northern portion of the county might not necessarily be good for central or southern part. Or what is beneficial for commuters might not be helpful to intercity traffic.

Planning

To ensure that our clients could obtain their goals, WF&Co. developed a public involvement plan that would be implemented during the 18-month planning process. Three main strategies were identified: partnering, information gathering and ongoing public contact. The first two strategies (partnering and information gathering) were sequential. The third strategy (on-going public contact) was implemented after the partnering tactics were initiated.

Our objective was to provide an opportunity for those affected by the planning process to learn more about the planning project, identify roles, responsibilities and commitments and to develop a shared set of goals and expectations. We facilitated an all-day retreat for the partners to identify expectations and the processes to meet those expectations.

We needed to understand the community’s vision for the Utah County corridor of I-15, which meant we needed to identify needs, issues, concerns and opportunities, and to understand and articulate the community vision to guide the planning process.

We accomplished this through small group discussions with emergency services providers, highway patrol officers, sheriffs, fire chiefs, chamber of commerce representatives, large corporations, city planners, wildlife and air quality specialists, transportation and growth planners, and truckers. We also conducted a countywide public opinion survey. Three community-visioning sessions were conducted in the northern, central and southern portions of Utah County with members of the general public. An open house was hosted to present options on how the community vision could be implemented and how the community issues could be resolved and to receive feedback.

Media relations and communication relations focused on keeping the public informed of the study’s progress and interested and involved at key decision points.

Outcome

Because of the ongoing involvement, the Corridor Management Plan reflected the community context. The clients felt their desire that the Corridor Management Plan reflect the needs and desires of the 20 communities within Utah County was achieved when the Utah County coalition of mayors unanimously adopted the final Plan in August 2002.