Executive Order 13274
Integrated Planning Work Group

Introduction

Transportation planning is more efficient with input from natural resource agencies early in the regional or statewide planning process, allowing transportation planners to design projects that avoid or minimize impacts that result in costly changes or time delays. As used here, “integrated planning” typically refers to interaction and coordination between transportation planners and the full range of government and nongovernment stakeholders who can help transportation agencies identify important community values, such as social, economic, or environmental considerations, that can otherwise delay project delivery. State and Federal natural resources agencies, historic preservation agencies, and others can improve transportation outcomes through integrated planning on several scales, including the long-range planning stage for transportation plans or during tiering, corridor, and sub area studies.

On September 18, 2002, President George W. Bush signed Executive Order (EO) 13274, Environmental Stewardship and Transportation Infrastructure Project Reviews. This move was intended to advance current U.S. Department of Transportation and interagency environmental stewardship and streamlining efforts by coordinating expedited decision making related to transportation projects across Federal agencies. Integrated planning offers the opportunity for better protection of natural and cultural resources, and to maximize efficient use of scarce staff and financial resources by flagging potential problems before the narrowing of options and completion of detailed design work. Integrated planning can also enable agencies to examine the resource impacts of multiple projects, thereby providing opportunities to develop more effective environmental mitigation measures.

While many resource and transportation agencies recognize a fully integrated transportation planning process as ideal, some challenges remain, such as:

• Conflicting priorities and scales of analysis among agencies or field offices, or national, regional, and local concerns
• Inconsistent terminology and incompatible data and performance measures across agencies
• Conflicting geographic, ecological, and political boundaries across agencies
• Funding procedures (whereby short-term objectives are often funded before long-term goals)

This information resource will provide planners the background, contact information, and resources they need to implement an integrated planning framework into their own activities.