Report identifies keys to successful transportation projects

There are six key design strategies that can be crucial in determining whether or not a transportation project will benefit its community, according to a new federal study conducted by theAmericanInstituteofArchitects (AIA) and University of Minnesota’s Center for Transportation Studies (CTS).

The report, Moving Communities Forward, analyzes over thirty different transportation projects from every corner ofthe country, exploring how they impact their communities’ economic progress, environmental health, public safety, level of citizen participation and overall aesthetics and livability.  The study was authorized by Congress in the 2005 transportation bill and funded by the U.S. Department of Transportation.

David T. Downey, Assoc. AIA, managing director ofthe AIA Center for Communities by Design said, “The findings show that small decisions have major effects on how a transportation project impacts its community.  In particular, it was striking to see how involving the public in a design process that incorporates all applicable disciplines – architects, engineers, planners, landscape architects, contractors, and government officials – can achieve a solution that has multiple benefits for a community.”

Bob Johns, University of Minnesota CTS Director, added, “The benefits of involving multiple disciplines were evident in this research as well as in design practice.  This truly was an interdisciplinary academic study, with each researcher's findings enriched by his or her interactions with the full research team.”

  The report identifies six “keys” to ensuring a successful project that benefits communities economically, environmentally and other ways:

·          Employing an integrated design process where planners, designers, transportation officials and builders develop a unified plan

·          Including all community stakeholders from the outset

·          Using three and four-dimensional images and graphics to increase citizen involvement, understanding, and buy-in

·         Creating human-scaled structures and spaces that make busy transportation hubs more manageable

·         Utilizing easily legible signs and directions that make complicated multimodal systems easier and safer to navigate

·        Designing projects to be both durable and adaptable to new transportation modes and community needs