Effective techniques for involving all stakeholders allow for meaningful participation and to reach consensus in the decision-making process. By necessity, involvement is inclusive, early and continuous, and tailored to meet the circumstances.
An increasing number of CSS projects involve shared decision making between a transportation agency and its stakeholders. A number of innovative techniques are emerging that are ideally suited to collaborative decision making in CSS projects, such as visualization, which allows citizens to better understand design proposals. These tools also link the transportation design product and the public participation process so that the two processes inform one another, and do not exist on separate tracks.
Explore this section to see perspectives about processes for soliciting public input and decision making for CSS projects, and creating a shared decision making structure.
"When we have a challenging project, we should think of the process features needed to accomplish a winning solution. We should go in not with the idea that we may need design exceptions, but that perhaps we need to develop exceptional design criteria for that project. Part of the process should involve the appropriate stakeholders in discussion of what those criteria ought to be."
