ITD's project planning tool featured by online news service

A tool that helps project planners identify public outreach needs reached an international audience during a recent demonstration at the annual Transportation Research Board meeting in Washington, D.C.

Bryant Kuechle, of the Langdon Group in Boise, helped design the Project Outreach Planner, which is unique to Idaho. He was among the presenters at the TRB meeting where Director Brian Ness also led a discussion about transportation leadership.

The POP tool reached even further this week when Kuechle and ITD Public Involvement Coordinator Adam Rush were interviewed by a national, online transportation news service. The five-minute interview, posted on the Internet, came as a result of the presentation at TRB. Kuechle and Rush explained that POP is user-friendly and easily adapted to other applications that potentially could benefit from its step-by-step guidelines.

To hear the interview, click here.

ITD launched the planning tool last fall. It is an online, interactive tool that helps employees determine when or if to begin the formal public involvement process and which options are most appropriate.

The POP concept focuses on a progression of multiple-choice questions that produces a numeric score of 1 through 5. The score correlates to a recommended level of public outreach for the project. The POP offers project-specific public involvement guidance, complete with tools and techniques for the recommended strategies.

“The implementation and use of the POP on our projects will ensure that we interact with the public in ways that benefit our communities and achieve ITD’s long-range and Strategic Plan goals,” said project sponsor Tom Cole. “We appreciate the collaborative effort by ITD employees statewide to make this a useful, unique and innovative tool.”

To explore the Project Outreach Planner's capabilities visit http://www.itd.idaho.gov/pop/

 

Published 2-1-2013