A letter from

Congratulations to the winners of the 2004 Federal Highway Administration/Federal Transit Administration Transportation Planning Excellence Awards. We also applaud all of the wonderful projects that were nominated for these awards. We are pleased that this biennial awards program was cosponsored by the American Planning Association. These partnerships demonstrate the importance of working together to recognize outstanding initiatives across the country to develop, plan and implement innovative transportation planning practices.

We were pleasantly surprised by the number of responses that we received in the first year of this awards program. The panel of judges had an awesome task of reviewing nominations and selecting the best of over 220 submittals within 10 categories.

The criteria for reviewing these nominations included innovation, intermodalism, partnerships, sustainability, equity, demonstrated results, and replicability. The 2004 Transportation Planning Excellence Awards recipients went beyond the standard practices and incorporated truly innovative and extraordinary efforts into their transportation planning processes. The bar was set very high. Awards were not presented in all categories.

Award recipients were honored on July 25 during the 2004 Joint Summer Meeting of the Planning, Economic, Environmental, Finance, Freight and Management Committees of the Transportation Research Board in Park City, Utah.

Once again, we would like to congratulate all of the winners in the 2004 FHWA/FTA Transportation Planning Excellence Awards. We appreciate your efforts to go the extra mile to ensure that your transportation plans, processes and products demonstrate excellence and reflect the needs of the communities that we serve. Thanks to you, we now have more examples of exemplary planning to share with communities across the country.

About the Transportation Planning Excellence Awards

The Federal Highway Administration and the Federal Transit Administration created the Transportation Planning Excellence Awards (TPEA) to recognize outstanding initiatives across the country to develop, plan, and implement innovative transportation planning practices. The TPEA are co-sponsored by the American Planning Association. 2004 is the first year of this biennial awards program.

Transportation Planning Excellence Awards Categories

• Academic/Student Projects recognizes efforts by universities and public schools to incorporate the subject of transportation planning into the academic curriculum. Efforts by students to apply and demonstrate transportation planning principles through transportation planning projects, design competitions, documentaries, and the like are also eligible for nomination.

• Homeland and Personal Security recognizes excellence in 'mainstreaming' the consideration of security into the metropolitan and statewide transportation planning processes. Consideration is given to the extent of activity that is coordinated across jurisdictions, modes, and State/local planning agencies; involves outreach and systems analysis; and is reflected in the content of transportation plans and programs.

• "Planning It Safe" Safety Conscious Planning (SCP) recognizes and brings to the forefront successful safety planning projects, innovative methods and delivery mechanisms, and collaborative efforts and partnerships that increase the effectiveness of Safety Conscious Planning.

• Planning Leadership recognizes an individual or team that has advanced or promoted excellence in transportation planning. The nominee's leadership efforts should have increased the transportation planning knowledge base and demonstrated effective practice(s) for developing and implementing transportation plans and initiatives. Nominees may include professional staff, elected or appointed officials, community leaders, issue advocates, and others.

• Public Involvement, Education, and Outreach recognizes innovative efforts to broaden the level and scope of participation in the planning process by community members who have previously not been engaged. For example, these measures may include electronic voting, visual preference surveys, public design forums, charrettes, and handbooks. Successful candidates will have demonstrated how feedback from public education and outreach was used to enhance the transportation planning process.

• Technology Applications recognizes the successful application of technology (e.g., global positioning systems or incident management systems) to strengthen transportation planning processes and operations in order to minimize the need for costly future transportation investments. Award recipients will have demonstrated how technology has improved a particular transportation planning process or operation.

• Transportation and Land Use Integration recognizes the development of comprehensive plans, ordinances, and other policy initiatives and tools to promotethe increased integration of transportation and land use planning and implementation processes.

• Transportation Planning and Environment highlights activities that link the transportation planning process to the natural and human environment. This category recognizes exemplary transportation planning that protects or improves the natural environment, air quality, habitat, etc., including effective linkage of planning with NEPA processes and air quality conformity processes. This category also acknowledges innovative efforts to protect the human environment, for example by effectively addressing Title VI/Environmental Justice requirements, or creating context-sensitive solutions.

• Transportation Planning Integration With Other Planning and Engineering Activities recognizes innovative efforts to incorporate other planning and engineering activities (for example, freight, operations, asset management, performance measurement, and transportation demand management) into the transportation planning process.

• Tribal Transportation Planning recognizes exemplary practice by Tribal governments in developing transportation plans and programs, and by States and other planning organizations in coordinating planning practices with Tribal governments.

Although nominations are solicited in each category, awards are not necessarily presented in each category, at the discretion of the judging panel. A project or organization may be nominated simultaneously for more than one planning category; however, each nomination should speak specifically to the project's appropriateness for that category.

The Selection Process

Nominations are reviewed by a panel of qualified and experienced judges from across the transportation profession. Each nomination is evaluated against a number of defined criteria:

• Innovation. What innovative approaches have been used by the project? What makes these efforts unique?

• Partnerships. What partnerships have been formed to facilitate the development and implementation of this project? How have these partnerships made a difference? What institutional mechanisms are in place to foster the continuation of these partnerships?

• Demonstrated Results/Replicability. What has been the result of these efforts? What has been implemented? How are results being measured? To what extent can these efforts be replicated in other areas of the country?

• Intermodalism. To what extent do these efforts address multimodal transportation options, including bicycle, pedestrian, transit, and automobile?

• Equity. What initiatives have been undertaken to ensure that these efforts are implemented in an equitable manner? What measures have been undertaken to minimize the impacts on any one community? What efforts have been made to involve all members of the community?

• Sustainability. How does this project seek to protect the environment and minimize the impact of transportation and land use on communities? What provisions have been used to ensure the long-term viability of this effort?

• Resources and Funding. What are the Federal, State, and local resources that made this planning possible? Have funds been dedicated toward implementing this project? How have Federal funds been leveraged?

In addition to satisfying these criteria, successful candidates must be superior within the specific category in which they are nominated.

"Planning It Safe" Safety Conscious Planning

To emphasize the importance of Safety Conscious Planning and give special recognition to those who are doing this work, the U.S. Department of Transportation gave "Planning It Safe" Safety Conscious Planning a special position within the 2004 Transportation Planning Excellence Awards (TPEA).

While both safety and transportation planning have been around for years, not until the passage of TEA‑21 was integrating the consideration of safety into transportation planning at all levels considered essential. In the past, safety planning and transportation planning had their own advocates, processes, and dedicated funding, and were addressed separately by planners and specialists with differing agendas and goals.

Today, with the emergence of Safety Conscious Planning, we see them joining as one:

• Safety Conscious Planning is proactive, and implements small changes for big effect.

• Safety Conscious Planning means that DOTs and MPOs make safety an explicit priority, carrying the same weight as congestion relief, environmental protection, and land use planning.

• Safety is an integral part of the transportation planning process, addressed proactively and comprehensively in long-range plans, STIPs and TIPs.

• Safety Conscious Planning fulfills the safety planning requirement in TEA-21.

The concept of Safety Conscious Planning operates effectively in an environment where all planning agencies:

• Include enforcement, education, emergency management concepts, data, information, and expertise in the planning process;

• Establish safety integration in the planning process as an organization priority;

• Hire and train planners at all levels in state-of-the-art practices;

• Identify and develop planning and analysis tools that support safety integration; and

• Collect, manage, and analyze crash data to inform agency plans and priorities.

For the "Planning it Safe" Safety Conscious Planning category, a special panel of judges evaluated the nominees against the following criteria:

• Innovativeness. How has this program/concept captured an innovative process to safety planning? How has this program been promoted?

• Effectiveness. Has this program increased the safety of the transportation system for motorized and non-motorized users? Can a distinct value to the community be categorized?

• Evaluation. Does this program have an evaluation process? Has this program been evaluated? What is/will be the evaluation plan, including methodology?

• Replication. Can the program or process be replicated by another organization for the improvement of transportation safety?

• Partnerships and Collaboration. Was this program created as a collaborative effort? Are public and private partners still at the table? Are non-traditional groups represented as well, including those outside the transportation safety arena (EMS, freight movers, etc.)?

• Resources and Funding. Is the funding source unique? Are the financial investments from more than one source? Is the program sustainable?