Streamlining the National Environmental Policy act process through cooperative local-state-federal transportation and land use planning

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, FHWA, and California Department of Transportation have initiated a demonstration in California called Partnership for Integrated Planning. The purpose of this program is to obtain early involvement from local, state, and federal agency staff to help in planning for transportation infrastructure, urban growth, and resource protection together, rather than just to negotiate over permits for major infrastructure at the project stage. A report on this demonstration project is provided. The project applies a simple urban growth model based on a geographic information system to evaluate a transportation plan and projects in Merced County (population 211,000 in 2000). Interviews with agency participants show that, in general, resource agency personnel have limited involvement with transportation planning and transportation planners have limited knowledge of environmental planning; they therefore need to develop methods for identifying their concerns for 20-year planning purposes. Planning for resource protection for a whole county is quite different from arguing for maximum protection of resources at the project scale. The early steps in building the model and acquiring data sets are reviewed.