BACKGROUND

Opportunities exist to connect neighborhoods by removing, retrofitting, or mitigating transportation barriers such as highways and railroad tracks. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) funds a new Reconnecting Communities Pilot (RCP) Program to connect historically divided communities. Additionally, the Inflation Reduction Act has $3 billion to fund Neighborhood Access and Equity (NAE) Grants, which aim to rework overbuilt arterial roads and make them safer and more accessible for various modes of transportation. State departments of transportation (DOTs) and partners (metropolitan planning organizations, rural planning agencies, local governments, or transportation-focused nonprofits) can leverage these new grants to improve connections across transportation networks and reinforce the spirit of overburdened and underrepresented communities.

While these programs and grants aim to improve or remove sources of division in a community, residents must be the primary focus, with infrastructure solutions balanced among the priorities at different scales. A few tools, resources, and research are currently available to assist DOTs and partners in examining divisions caused by existing and proposed transportation investments or lack of investments.

These divisions may be due to the Interstate Highway System, overbuilt arterials, fixed transit, rail corridors, transportation maintenance facilities, land uses dependent on transportation, etc. Research and resources often focus on later phases of a project, for example, public participation opportunities in project design or environmental permit stages, but not at the concept stage. Research is needed to fill these gaps by providing guidelines for state DOTs and partners to employ when addressing divided communities, recognizing that what they deliver to their customers has evolved beyond the infrastructure elements of the transportation network and toward a customer-focused system that promotes thriving, healthy, and safe communities. The research should focus on the totality of the project development and delivery process.

OBJECTIVE

The objective of this research is to provide guidelines to state DOTs and partners to identify communities divided by infrastructure and evaluate actions to improve, mitigate, or remove sources of division. The guidelines should emphasize using cocreation (including transportation practitioners and community members) in an environment of respect.

Accomplishment of the project objective will require at least the following tasks. 

TASKS

PHASE I 

The first project phase comprises developing or approving cornerstone elements of the research plan. This phase shall not exceed three project quarters.

The first project quarter shall include the delivery of:

1. The Amplified Research Plan,
2. A kickoff meeting (with summary notes),
3. An annotated bibliography identifying academic and grey literature and other credible sources,
4. A detailed memorandum identifying how to operationalize the engagement strategy as proposed, and
5. A monitoring process of current RCP grant recipients to develop lessons learned (Phase II details the desired deliverable).

The second project quarter shall deliver a thematic literature review based on the approved annotated bibliography. Additionally, the research team shall define frameworks for:

1. What a community is,
2. What are harms to a community, and
3. What are community benefits and how can they be balanced through respectful cocreation? 

Cocreation is envisioned as coupling community needs expressed from members’ lived experiences with improvements that may be derived from transportation practitioners’ precepts. The frameworks shall consider the geographic, cultural, and socially diverse types of communities, including urban, rural, dispersed, or tribal.

The third project quarter shall deliver the first interim report and updated Phase II research plan with a virtual interim meeting. One month shall be reserved for review and NCHRP approval. The interim report shall be suitable for publication as a Research Results Digest, and the research team shall assist with the publication process. 

PHASE II

The project's second phase shall use the frameworks from Phase I as the basis to suggest methods for inclusion in the final deliverable. This phase shall not exceed three project quarters.  

The fourth project quarter shall deliver methods that assist state DOTs and partners in (1) identifying communities for potential improvement or removal of sources of division and (2) evaluating actions to improve, mitigate, or remove sources of division. The methods and resources developed as part of this project shall incorporate qualitative data on people’s lived experiences and quantitative data on various transportation and land use indicators to understand the underlying characteristics of the communities. Additionally, the research team shall provide a set of best practices for developing scopes of work for improvement concepts.

The methods should start at the planning stage to inform the totality of the project development and delivery process, considering cumulative impacts to assist in finding balanced solutions. The methods shall include identifying division, impacts of division, performance metrics, and desired agency/community outcomes. Further, the methods shall seek to respect resilient communities’ adaptations due to division, understanding the potential for a project to undo adaptations and further injury (for example, a project’s budget may limit its full and beneficial impact). Finally, the research team shall identify intentional actions or safeguards in the methods to avoid additional harm, understanding an improvement may have unanticipated consequences such as gentrification.

Note: While gentrification could be an unanticipated impact, this research project shall avoid investigating the topic, understanding that a project about gentrification is pending: NCHRP Project 08-160, “Guide to Identify and Mitigate the Negative Effects of Gentrification Caused by Transportation Investment.” Project information can be found at: https://apps.trb.org/cmsfeed/TRBNetProjectDisplay.asp?ProjectID=5138.

In the fifth project quarter, the research team shall provide a summary report of their monitoring of current recipients of RCP (planning and construction), NAE (if applicable), and related federal grants (such as Safe Systems for All) for lessons learned. The research team should seek insights on unsuccessful RCP applicants, if available. Finally, the research team should consider those eligible for grants who have not traditionally had direct access to federal transportation grants and where technical assistance from state DOTs may be applicable. This effort will allow the research team to offer readiness and success strategies for future or interested grant applicants.

The sixth project quarter shall deliver the second interim report and updated Phase III research plan with an in-person interim meeting the day following the workshop described above. In the second interim report, predraft guidelines shall be included so the panel can review them before presenting them for vetting at the workshop. One month shall be reserved for review and NCHRP approval.

PHASE III

The project's third phase shall be reserved for developing the draft final deliverables and shall not exceed two project quarters. The draft final deliverables shall include: 

1. Guidelines presented in Microsoft Word,
2. A conduct of research report,
3. A PowerPoint presentation with speaker notes that summarize the project and distinctly illustrate for the audience how the research can be applied in their organization,
4. Educational materials or training resources for use by DOTs and partners,
5. A draft article suitable for publication in the TR News (no guarantee of publication is implied), and
6. An Implementation Plan. 

The guidelines shall consider the input from the workshop and be delivered according to the approved updated Phase III research plan. It is initially envisioned that the guidelines will include resources, case examples, a data catalog, and analytical methods for state DOTs to use when identifying, evaluating, and scoping improvements that will make connections or overcome harm from transportation infrastructure.

STATUS: Proposals have been received in response to the RFP.  The project panel will meet to select a contractor to perform the work.