Participatory Governance

Planning, Conflict Mediation and Public Decision-Making in Civil Society

W. Robert Lovan, Michael Murray, Ron Shaffer

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351912730
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: City Planning & Urban Development
• Index: Politics & International Relations

In recent years a new participatory governance dynamic has been redefining relationships and responsibilities in the planning and implementation of policies and programs. Participatory governance not only crosses public, private and associational sectors, but is also intra-organizational. It allows for individual and collective participation, and challenges longstanding norms of institutional behavior. This book examines fresh evidence relating to planning, conflict mediation and public decision-making processes in civil society by bringing together a multi-disciplinary team of practitioners and scholars from North America, Europe, Africa and Australia. In an analysis which spans institutional perspectives and operational concerns, the contributors explore the dynamics of stakeholder involvement as deliberative processes constructed around the core idea of shared responsibility. The book draws out important principles as to how this diversity of engagement can translate itself into more effective public decision-making.

Section Three: Section Three: Operational Dimensions of Participatory Governance

DOI: 10.4324/9781315247335-9

Chapter 7 Regional Transportation Strategies in the Washington, D.C. Area: When Will They be Ready to Collaborate?

W. Robert Lovan

DOI: 10.4324/9781315247335-10

Background

This chapter focuses on a public decision-making process involved with planning and implementing a regional metropolitan transportation strategy. The process is made difficult by other public policy issues and further compounded by inter-jurisdictional interests.

Since the 1920s, community leaders in the Washington metropolitan region, (Northern Virginia, Central Maryland and the District of Columbia) have recognized that interconnected economic factors determine the quality of life for their jurisdictions (Figure 7.1). For more than a decade, however, the single regional public issue has been the coordination of transportation planning. It has not focused on meeting the needs of a regional economy. Instead, the debate is consumed by transportation issues and the impact of the attendant transportation infrastructure on the quality-of-life for the metropolitan region.

Two important public policy questions are driving this regional, transportation public decision-making debate - land-use issues and environmental issues. The land-use question concerns how various modes of transportation,¹ and the attendant infrastructure, will influence development densities and commuter patterns. Closely tied to this land-use issue is the quality of the environment - particularly air and water quality. Population growth and the burning of carbon fuels by the internal combustion engine (automobiles, buses and trucks) are threatening the regional air quality to the degree that the Federal Government has moved to sanction the regional governments.² In addition, urban domestic chemical usage and other residual pollutants, a by-product of the urban sprawl (individual usage in home and lawn applications), threatens the quality of the area watershed.³

Over and above the strains on the public decision-making process to resolve the transportation planning issues (compounded by land-use, air and water quality issues and to a lesser degree economic development strategies), the debate is further fractured by the interests of the many governmental entities. They include the States of Maryland and Virginia, Washington, DC as a semi-autonomous region dominated by the Federal Government, seven counties and 25 local governments. Each of these 35 governments holds a form of veto power within the public policy decision-making process.⁴

Figure 7.1 The Regional Context of Washington, D.C.

This attempt to coordinate inter-governmental, public policy decision-making for the region is not a recent issue. The first regional meetings were held in 1922. In 1957, responding to inter-jurisdictional decision-making needs, an intergovernmental organization, the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (WashCOG), was formed.⁵ Regional transportation planning was one of the first items on the new metropolitan council’s agenda. Transportation planning was assigned to the National Capital Region Transportation Policy Planning Board (TPB). Beginning in the 1960s, for example, in order for the metropolitan region to obtain Federal assistance for any desired transportation project, the regional entities were required to coordinate all of their individual transportation projects.

This Federal mandate not only included improved intergovernmental coordination, but also “required citizen involvement and the directive to eliminate damage to the environment” (Weiner, 1997). In addition to the Federal mandate, there are also state-level intergovernmental planning bodies in Maryland (the National Capital Area Parks and Planning Commission) and in Virginia (the Northern Virginia Regional Commission).

During this same period, non-governmental private local, state-level and regional organizations were formed to advise and advocate a particular transportation policy. One of the first was the Greater Washington Board of Trade representing the business sector. Today, there are dozens of prominent inter-regional advocacy organizations representing the interests of the three sectors of the civil society (government, associational and business).⁶ Each group campaigns for its own preferred transportation, land-use/environmental protection and/or economic development program. In addition, three other influential inter-regional nongovernmental organizations are from the associational sector: the Piedmont Environmental Council, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and the Coalition for Smart Growth (ICAR Transportation Study Team, 2000).

Yet, at the end of 2002, with all of this structure for comments by citizens and sectors to the public decision-making process, the three principal jurisdictions (Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia) remain more divided than ever over what public policy strategies are to be devolved than they are united over what transportation projects to implement. Since the 1960s, the single regional project to be implemented is the current construction to replace the deteriorating Woodrow Wilson Memorial Bridge (built in the 1950s), over the Potomac river at Alexandria, Virginia. Also, during the 1960s, the beltway around the District was constructed (Figure 7.1) and the decades long work on the metropolitan region Metro rail/bus system was begun.⁷

These 1960 infrastructure projects were meant to aid the flow of the hundreds of thousands who commuted to work daily from Maryland and Virginia into the District of Columbia. Today, however, more jobs now exist outside of the District than inside. The 2000 U.S. Census also showed that the Virginia and Maryland jurisdictions have five times more residents than the District (WashCOG, 2001). The center no longer commands the whole. Frustration with regional congestion has risen to the point that the transportation problems are now interconnected with land-use and the environment issues, all of which have now become difficult political issues. This three-part debate⁸ (transportation, land-use and the environment) is taking place across and within many arenas in the region: (1) within and among the three sectors (government, associational and business), (2) within and among the local and the State levels of government, as well as (3) within and between Maryland and Virginia, and to a lesser degree, the District of Columbia.

Understanding the conflict

Since 1988, the Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution (ICAR) at George Mason University⁹ has studied and intervened on issues of regional cooperation and coordination in the metropolitan region. On the transportation planning issue, during the 1999-2000 academic year, graduate students¹⁰ conducted structured, open-ended interviews of dozens of recognized public leaders¹¹ in Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia. These respondents were drawn from the government, associational and the business sectors. They were asked a series of questions as to why regional transportation planning and cooperation was so difficult. The interviews began with transportation policy questions and expanded to the connected issues of land-use, the environment and economic development.

Information from these interviews was summarized, patterned responses identified, and then from this analysis eight broad areas of concern were identified. The interview data concentrated on what was believed to be the characteristic difficulties with regional transportation planning (ICAR Transportation Study Team, 2000):

• Multi-jurisdictional character of the Washington metropolitan region, recognizing the region includes numerous local jurisdictions, the District of Columbia government and two state governments.
• Incomplete and ineffective citizen review as a concern of the elected officials. Two concerns were expressed: Do the procedures required to be followed in fact represent the interests of the citizens? Do the participating individuals and the groups (representing sectoral interests) constitute more than a ‘superficial’ citizen consultation process?
• Divided authority spreads out (thins) the policy making process. Planning, decision-making and implementation among the numerous local governments, sub-regional entities, and state and multi-state/inter-regional authorities limit collaborative decision-making.
• Mandated processes as outlined by Federal and State governments. There are too many points in the process where a previous decision can be challenged and is challenged.
• Limited[public] funding represents insufficient public fiscal resources to implement all of the transportation projects nominated by the many governmental entities. Consequently this directly causes competition and confrontational interactions among the sectoral participants.
• Already limited communication is compounded by conflicting views. Incomplete communication often results from differing logic and perceptions of technical terms and procedures employed by politicians, engineers, advocacy groups and citizens when communicating with each other. The challenge is understanding is, how different interests react differently to seemingly similar information.
• Numerous stakeholders representing: (1) citizens and elected officials, who must articulate transportation needs; (2) State and local elected officials who must prioritize projects; (3) transportation planners who must prepare the technical plans; (4) regional boards that must assimilate local and sub-regional initiatives into a comprehensive regional vision; (5) Federal and State officials who allocate fiscal resources; while, (6) consultations with civic, environmental, business and other special interest are required at every step in the project development and funding process.
• Circular decision-making process. The required process appears to many to be a never-ending cycle rather than following a set of specific, discrete and sequential decision-making steps which will lead to an agreed end result or product.

Following the compilation of the list of these eight areas of characteristic difficulties the ICAR transportation study team met with the Council of Governments TPB. The team asked the TPB to concentrate on those factors on which the Board believed they could take action. A critical question comprised the areas in which the Board believed that collaborative action among the three sectors could be undertaken. Table 7.1 identifies a number of the contributing and inhibiting factors for taking collaborative action on the characteristic difficulties. (ICAR Transportation Study Team, 2000).

Table 7.1 Factors Affecting Regional Transportation Planning

Factors which Contribute to the Planning Process	Factors which Inhibit the Planning Process
• The ability of the TPB to reach consensus and make decisions despite enormous complexity.	• Insufficient funding.
• The requirement to conform to mandated procedures provides momentum to achieve project implementation.	• Different governmental structures and decision-making among jurisdictions within the metropolitan area.
• Each governmental jurisdiction embraces its own philosophies and objectives and generally meets the goals it establishes for itself.	• Parochialism between elected officials and constituencies.
• Lack of public support to take the measures necessary to bring about real changes.	• Differing values espoused by jurisdictions within the metropolitan area.

It is interesting to note that during the discussion one Board member said that the process employed by TPB seemed to be functioning as designated, but that the process increasingly seemed to result in unsatisfactory products. Several Board members indicated that TPB’s work pattern does not allow for deeper policy discussion of some important issues, and in fact erects barriers to the requirement in reaching a regional agreement.

At the end of the meeting, the ICAR transportation study team raised the question as to how the TPB might use its authority for dealing with the identified characteristic difficulties. Three approaches for sorting out actions were identified: (1) where TPB has the authority, but because they are unaware of the situation they take no action; (2) where TPB has the authority, but decides to not take action; and (3) where TPB does not have the authority and, therefore, should not take any action.

The ICAR transportation study team suggested a strategy for TPB to use in dealing with the characteristic difficulties of competing issues and interests within the transportation debate. A process was proposed which would allow for a collaborative discussion concerning transportation planning and the associated issues. Essential participants from each of the three sectors would participate in the discussion. The objectives would be:

• to support networks for informal communication and relationship building in a neutral and relaxed atmosphere;
• to identify the obstacles and the opportunities for effective multi-sectoral decision-making; and,
• to generate options for overcoming the obstacles and capitalize upon the opportunities.

An inter-sector dialogue

During the 2000-2001 academic year, ICAR explored the potential for the presidents of the two major state universities in the metropolitan region, George Mason University (Virginia) and the University of Maryland, to offer their institutions as neutral sites for a series of dialogues among regional leaders. State partisan politics proved too much of a risk for the universities, so invitations were never extended. In addition, coming stat...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half-Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Acknowledgments
• List of Contributors
• Foreword
• Section One: Introduction
• Section Two: Institutional Perspectives on Participatory Governance
• Section Three: Operational Dimensions of Participatory Governance
• Section Four: Reflections on Participatory Governance
• Index