On October 4-5, 2007, the Federal Highway Administration's (FHWA) Office of Environment, Planning, and Real Estate Services sponsored a 1.5-day peer exchange focusing on select State Departments of Transportation (DOTs) applications of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for Planning and Environment Linkages (PEL). The purpose of the peer exchange was to explore how GIS can help accomplish the goals of PEL. Participants at the event, which was hosted by Oregon DOT at its Region 1 Office in Portland, Oregon, consisted of staff from Florida DOT, Idaho DOT, Oregon DOT, South Carolina DOT, Tennessee DOT, Washington DOT, FHWA Oregon Division, FHWA Washington Division, and the USDOT Volpe Center (See Appendix A for complete list of participants).
Background
FHWA's PEL initiative 1 seeks to change the way that transportation decisions are made, by promoting a new approach that considers environmental, community, and economic factors early in the planning stage and carries them through project development, design, and construction. PEL encourages collaboration among agencies throughout the planning process, as mandated by SAFETEA-LU, Section 6001. Some PEL activities include:
As part of the PEL initiative, a series of interviews were held as follow-up for states that participated in Linking Planning and NEPA Workshops. During the interviews, participants identified understanding how to apply GIS to conduct environmental analyses in planning as both a need and an area where FHWA could provide assistance. Similarly, one recommendation made as a result of an FHWA–sponsored domestic scan of the state of the practice of GIS for transportation decision making was to conduct more peer exchanges on the uses of GIS for various transportation applications. 2
Recognizing that GIS and other geospatial applications can help transportation agencies more effectively carry considerations made during planning through the environmental review process, FHWA convened a peer exchange to bring together GIS and planning experts – providing a forum for them to share their experiences and knowledge. This report provides a summary of the presentations and discussions that took place at the peer exchange. It should serve as a resource for other DOTs and transportation agencies looking to learn more about successful implementations – or planned implementations – of GIS for PEL. Lessons learned and recommendations of the participating DOTs are found in the concluding section.