Paper Details

TRB 90th Annual Meeting (January 23-27, 2011)

Event Number:	345
Event Title:	Public Involvement in Transportation
Event Date:	Jan 24 2011 2:30PM- 5:00PM
Event Location:	Hilton, International Center
Event Description:	The session highlights lessons learned in successful public involvement efforts in order to share best practices, promote use of new technologies, build awareness and skills, and advance the state of the art in public involvement applications in transportation. Posters include examples from various modes as well as the different stages of the planning process, from visioning and long-range planning to design and construction.
Event Agenda:

Fostering Community Aesthetic Decision Making: Structured Public Involvement in the Milton-Madison Bridge Replacement Process (11-1459)

Involving large groups of people in complex infrastructure planning and design problems has historically been a considerable challenge for professionals and elected officials. For even the most well-intentioned professionals, increasing complexity has dictated decreasing group size, so that many complex decisions are based on the judgment of advisory panels, or even just the technical and professional team. This challenge is being met more directly by the profession, for example with such documents as the recently-completed “Bridge Aesthetic Sourcebook” published by the Bridge Aesthetics Subcommittee of the TRB. While helpful, this is an incomplete substitute for the aesthetic tastes of the local community. However, this no longer need be the case. Using Structured Public Involvement, and needing only one large public meeting to gather data, the planning and design team for the Milton-Madison Bridge replacement project was able to measure in some detail the complex aesthetic preferences of the residents of Milton, KY and Madison, IN. This included, for example, measuring how the public’s preference for different design concepts was influenced by how light or dark the final color of the structure might be, and how those aesthetic tastes varied across subgroups, such as the Historic Preservation consulting parties. In this paper we demonstrate and discuss some of the information gathered and show how extensive aesthetic information can be gathered by other design teams faced with similar problems, so that it can be incorporated into the design process alongside cost, maintenance, and constructability issues.

Authors
     Grossardt, Theodore H., Kentucky Transportation Cabinet
     Ripy, John , University of Kentucky
     Bailey, Keiron , University of Arizona
     Carr, John , Wilbur Smith Associates
     Sorenson, Timothy , Wilbur Smith Associates
     Wright, Samantha , Wilbur Smith Associates
     Stover, Aaron , Michael Baker Jr., Inc.