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Sustainability Blueprint Division Focus Group Meeting – Minutes/Summary June 8, 2011, 1:00-4:00 PM

Division 10 TMC Participants

Division Attendees: Barry Moose, Louis Mitchell, Davis Diggs, Jason Willis, Rodney Gantt, Brett Canipe, Scott Cole Facilitation Team: Leigh Lane (CTE), Lindsay Maurer (Planning Communities), Kagure Wamunyu (CTE) Introductions

After brief introductions from the facilitation team, attendees were asked to introduce themselves by stating their name, position, and length of time with NCDOT, as well as the first words or ideas they think of when they hear the word “sustainability.” Responses included:

“Something that lasts forever.”

“Building and buying one time—trying to make it last. We are very budget-conscious in the trying economic times and always look for ways to make our system last longer.”

“From a sustainability standpoint, I think about our impact on the environment and what we try to do to minimize that impact in the long term.”

“Maintenance of effort—we need to be able to maintain our system with constant effort on our part, working towards keeping those things moving in the right direction.”

“To maintain your system at a higher level, to design and maintain your system to where it will last—to be able to maintain what you’ve got.”

“When I think of sustainability, being a maintenance engineer, I would say longevity of infrastructure with ease of maintenance; and practicality.”

“When I think about sustainability, I think about fiscal responsibility and building what can be maintained.”

Ms. Lane (facilitator) continued by explaining the background and purpose of the Sustainability Blueprint and this outreach session. What Sustainability Looks Like at NCDOT

Participants viewed a video introducing the Sustainability Blueprint. Ms. Lane then asked a series of questions, with responses indicated below. What images are still with you after you watch that? Which words or phrases caught your attention?

“Bang for your buck.”

“It’s stuff that we do every day but don’t think about it. I think as an organization we do this every day, we just don’t label it as sustainability—I think as engineers, we’re trained to do that.”

What if any images did this video change for you related to sustainability?

“I don’t think of social investment.”

“I agree, we don’t think about it but it’s important.”

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“That kind of competes with the rest of what we do. When we’re concerned about being everything to everybody, it seems like we get away from our stewardship of the transportation system.”

What was the key component of the social investment example?

Participants agreed that the economic development was the key component of the social investment example. One participant noted that the connection between the social investment piece and the economics of it would be difficult to quantify. Other participants noted measures such as new businesses, tax base, and revenue.

The concept of return on investment (ROI) was discussed in the context of a current ROI analysis being conducted for light rail in Charlotte. One participant noted that light rail has revitalized the south end of Charlotte.

How did you find the video helpful?

“It gets the juices rolling as far as examples.” Ms. Lane summarized the discussion, stating the importance of thinking holistically about sustainability and of seeing what NCDOT is already doing. She also noted that the concept of social investment hadn’t been fully connected yet. Overview of Focus Areas

Ms. Lane briefly introduced the focus areas and the process of developing them through a state DOT review and Working Group/Advisory Group input. She indicated that input is being sought on how the focus areas might be changed. Sustainability Practices: Existing and New

Ms. Lane described the results of the sustainable practices survey, introducing the summary and preliminary list of current practices. She then asked the participants to spend some time thinking of things they are already doing that are reflective of these focus areas. She encouraged participants to bring up practices even if they were already included on the preliminary list. Participants were given 15-20 minutes to brainstorm and write existing practices on half-sheets of paper, noting the practice name, contact information, Division(s) where the practice is being implemented, and whether it is being measured (in terms of time, money, and other resources) in any way. Following this brainstorming process, participants were asked to place the practices on the facilitation wall under the focus area where they primarily fit. If a practice fit under more than one focus area, participants were asked to choose a single primary area then mark the practice with a sticky note indicating secondary focus area(s). After hearing these instructions, one participant noted that “before you can provide a sustainable system, you have to have a sustainable organization.” This concern was echoed in the identification of new practices (see below).

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Ms. Lane explained that a large part of the Sustainability Blueprint effort is packaging what the DOT is already doing, i.e. first making sure that the Sustainability Blueprint documents what the department is already doing within this framework. These existing practices would all be strategies – the “how” that will be used to deliver an outcome. Ms. Lane explained that documenting these measures is important since an important part of the Blueprint will be about evaluation and developing performance measures to evaluate outcomes. She also explained that the Blueprint is not just about documenting what’s already being done but aims to push these practices to the next level and do more. Participants were then asked to repeat the process for new ideas related to sustainable practices. She explained that these ideas can be things they are already been trying to do, but have perhaps met some type of challenge, i.e. having to demonstrate ROI, costs, etc. If this is the case (practice they’ve tried to implement), participants were asked to provide more information on the back. Ms. Lane also explained that these ideas could be things that the participants have seen other agencies do—governmental agencies, things heard about on the news, etc. This exercise was framed around the low-hanging fruit concept. In the Sustainability Blueprint, it’s going to be an evolving type of thing, not something that will be done and left behind. The focus will be on the low-hanging fruit first and then move on to pushing things to the next level. The inventory of existing and new sustainable practices, categorized by focus area, is provided in a table on the pages that follow. A summary of comments and findings is presented after the table. Below is a photograph of the facilitation wall upon completion of this exercise, with existing practices in blue, new practices in yellow, and Post-It notes indicating overlap between focus areas.

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Practice Contact Information, Measurement, Barriers Additional Categories

Mobility, Accessibility and Transportation-Land Use Integration

EXIS

TIN

G

System efficiency - building and maintaining a transportation system that is adequate to meet needs and not taking on roads that do not solve the goals of a statewide program; example: 6 vpd road unpaved, single-lane bridge (structurally deficient). Give Department a policy to "abandon" from system instead of spending big money to satisfy one person. This will allow wise use of taxpayer $ where 4,000 vpd is. Also less subdivision street additions to system--only serves a few homeowners

Rodney Gantt, Division 12, 704-480-9029, rgantt@ncdot.gov; difficult due to legality of taking something out of the system; can attempt to do it by going to commissioners and trying to get a resolution; existing practice that could be done more effectively

Digital records/files Financial and Economic Investment, Environmental Stewardship

Alternative designs - roundabouts, superstreets, quadlefts, divergent diamond interchanges

Scott Cole, Division 10 DTE

Wayfinding - designed to bring people into the center city and bring them directly to their destination/parking without milling around once they get to the city - to reduce VMTs and emissions

Scott Cole, Division 10 DTE Environmental Stewardship

Signal optimization Scott Cole, Division 10 DTE Environmental Stewardship

ITS/IMAP - managing and operating the system that we have through these technologies

Division 10

High occupancy toll (HOT) managed lanes Division 10; project already being funded (I-77 HOV conversion)

NEW

Developer escrow impacts - developers contribute to the state to make transportation improvements; DOT generally requires developers to abate traffic impacts, but they're typically small; if we had some type of way to collect those fees on a corridor, we could get more bang for our buck; currently not coordinated--could instead apply consistent design and where it's needed nearby

Practice in New Jersey

Financial and Economic Investment

EXIS

TIN

G

One-man patcher - patches potholes with one man; reduces exposure of employees to traffic; more efficient

Multiple county maintenance offices statewide, including Mecklenburg Co.

Pavement/bridge preservation Rodney Gantt, Division 12, 704-480-9029, rgantt@ncdot.gov

Mobility/Accessibility/Integration, Environmental Stewardship

Private snow and ice abatement - resource savings, time and employee overhead; 50 trucks currently on contract, on-call as needed

Currently being measured

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Practice Contact Information, Measurement, Barriers Additional Categories

Recycled concrete aggregate - use as fill/stabilization material, costs less than ABC

Brett Canipe, Mecklenburg Co., 394-8321; available now but not widely accepted through materials unit--obviously has limitations (gradation, etc.) but if you use your head about where to use it, it's a lot cheaper than standard quarry stones

Optimization of force account labor vs. contract labor - we're at a point where we have a lot of needs, funding has been reasonable, and we don't have the employees to get the work done - where are the best places to use contracts?

Louis Mitchell, Division 10, District 2

Mowing and spraying - spray to improve turf quality and reduce mowing cycles Environmental Stewardship

Private litter crews Environmental Stewardship

Full depth reclamation P.T. Moxley, 704-982-0101 Environmental Stewardship

Replace bridges with culverts where feasible Rodney Gantt, Division 12, 704-480-9029, rgantt@ncdot.gov

Mobility/Accessibility/Integration

NEW

Real time mobile work (data input) - way to keep track of activities, cost analysis tool; could take out two points of human error

Barriers: IT conflicts/complications, funding for hardware (expensive to do statewide)

Utility and other impact fees - when utility owners physically cut our asphalts, excavate, and do repairs, you will always compromise it and have a deficient section; would be helpful to have a way of measuring cost to cut pavement; traveling public suffers from potholes and bad roads; additional social aspect is the cost to the public; could present management difficulties, but up-front impact fee would help

UNCC study, CDOT has implemented; City of Charlotte has implemented

Social Investment

Snowplowable "stick down" pavement marker - "there's gotta be one out there"; spending a lot of money on raised pavement markers; if we have to plow this year, they'll be gone; need something that will stay in place and not have to be cut into the pavement

Scott Cole, Division 10 DTE

LED roadway lighting - this technology is evolving; evaluated it a couple of years ago, technology wasn't quite there yet but should be there soon--should revisit it because the power requirement goes down

Scott Cole, Division 10 DTE

Spray vs. row mowing on more primary routes to reduce mowing cycles - study to show a cost savings in spraying a route vs. just mowing, i.e. spraying improves turf quality and cuts out mowing cycles; we're doing this on major roads, would like to do on others in order to reduce mowing (dangerous operations)

Barriers: time, money, personnel

Safety/injury rewards - if the employees had more to gain or lose, that would change behavior

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Practice Contact Information, Measurement, Barriers Additional Categories

Environmental Stewardship

EXIS

TIN

G

Grinding clearing debris into mulch Union County Maintenance

H-I sign sheeting Scott Cole, Division 10 DTE

Programmable thermostats in facilities Tim Boland - Division 10 DOE

"Piedmont Prairie" preserve - moved endangered plant species to a park, set up a 20-acre preserve there in lieu of eliminating

Carry Thompson, Division 10 DEO

NPDES (National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System) - stormwater - statewide use to manage stormwater runoff on projects and at facilities; part of BMPs, but would do it more widespread

Statewide

Implementation of the erosion and sediment control program - construction and maintenance projects, sediment runoff

Divisions 10 and 12, and statewide

NEW

Streamline environmental permitting process Barriers: issues in Maintenance; internal and external hurdles, paperwork/people; process improvement needed

Social Investment

EXIS

TIN

G

Multi-modal projects - maximize project personnel Financial and Economic Investment

Greenway

Road diets - social and economic impacts; can provide the same throughput while adding a bike lane or sidewalk

Rest areas - safety for travelers--stop and rest; statewide use

Wildflower program - enhance roadsides to improve travels; also protects natural environment

Environmental Stewardship

Internal Organization - NCDOT

NEW

Recognizing staff monetarily for good work

Investment into employees

Leadership development

Improve communications via cell phones to employees - data plans for engineers

In-range salary adjustments to promote hard work, morale, appreciation - example: skill-based pay (SBP), competency-based pay (CBP)

Fully fund and implement SBP and CBP - great program that puts power in the hands of managers to reward employees for attaining more skills and abilities;

Barriers: program was initiated about 14 years ago, but it has been on hold for 2 years

Invest in our employees and trim the fat Social Investment

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Key Findings and Themes The inventory of existing and new practices demonstrated the following key trends in feedback:

Participants generally understood the concept of Environmental Stewardship, offering a variety of existing practices but only one new idea. As shown in the table, the group discussed the difficulties of streamlined environmental review, and Ms. Lane responded that “the ILT could pick up and take on something like this.”

The table shows a large number of existing and new practices under Financial and Economic Investment, likely reflecting the current economic climate and subsequent areas of emphasis in the Department. Division employees seem to understand and embrace this focus area as well and had a variety of creative new ideas for financial sustainability and efficiency. One employee noted that the fact that Financial and Economic Investment had the most practices was “not surprising because a lot of it has to do with money and cost-benefit.”

Attendees also appeared to understand Mobility, Accessibility and Transportation-Land Use Integration, which recorded several existing ideas (although only one new practice).

No new practices were recommended for Social Investment, and only two new practices in other categories were viewed as linked to Social Investment. While several existing practices were noted, there may be a need for education and outreach efforts about the connection between transportation activities and the aspects of Social Investment.

Participants recognized some overlap between the four focus areas, particularly between Environmental Stewardship, Financial/Economic Investment, and Mobility/Accessibility. The connections between these three concepts appeared to be well understood, while connections to Social Investment were less frequently noted. One participant stated that “financial investment touches just about everything.”

Participants perceived that barriers to some existing practices are imposed by IT.

The vast majority of the conversation revolved around internal organizational/HR challenges, suggesting the potential for a focus area related to organizational sustainability. Participants expressed a very high degree of frustration with current incentives, morale, and pay structures. They also expressed significant concerns about employee retention and competition with non-state entities. The group created a new focus area to categorize new practices related to internal organization, as shown in the table. Specific comments included:

o “I started that category, and I want to make sure it’s understood that it’s about more than pay. Obviously, monetary compensation for our work is important, but it’s not all of it—it’s the whole culture, organization, and structure. That’s why I put investment into employees—things that we can do to reduce attrition of key employees. We do have a tremendous investment in our young engineers, and then we see a large attrition in a 4-year time frame. They’re too marketable for the private sector and other governmental agencies. We as an organization are spending a lot of capital to lose employees, and if we could come up with ways to retain them we could save money—with no need to re-train workers and with fewer mistakes. It’s more than the monetary aspect. It’s about developing leaders that are ready to move up into key roles when key roles come available.”

o “It (attrition) has slowed down some with the economy, but we’re still seeing it. We lost someone who got a 47% raise to go to the City of Charlotte. Those entities are letting us spend the resources to train employees and then they’re going there.”

o “We’ve got a mechanism (for competency based pay) on hold for two years.”

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“It’s been on hold since the recession.” o “Right now, the primary barrier is the desire to reduce state government as a principle—

the feeling that it’s too big so we should try to reduce it to some degree. There’s never really been an appetite to treat employees like a private sector company would because of the potential public outcry that would create. It’s easy to say that we should run DOT as a business, but it’s a two-way street—this principle of government is a big barrier.”

o “But there are some things you can do—you can recognize employees for what they do, and there are so many things you can do for internal sustainability. There are little things you can do without spending much money.”

o “There are really no barriers to keep us from doing it, but nobody really has the fortitude to do so.”

o “One of the things I don’t think we recognize at the state level is the geographic differences. Charlotte, Raleigh, and Greensboro probably have a higher attrition level because we don’t recognize the economy and market of geography. It’s probably not as hard to retain in northern areas of the state. I understand that this does create stresses otherwise, but personnel-wise it’s a problem.”

o “The City of Charlotte has still had competency raises throughout the recession. They can create positions overnight to fulfill a need, but we have to pigeon-hole everything.”

o “It’s not just the pay—it’s the flexibility.” o “You can provide other incentives.” o “I talk on my cell phone to employees constantly, and I don’t get reimbursed.” o “Pay is only a motivator for so long, then it becomes an expectation. It’s the flexibility to

manage and make discretionary decisions (as managers) to make the organization more sustainable.”

o “I just want to get DOT to understand that employees have little incentive to work hard. This lowers production and increases cost—there is a cost and associated value with employees who are motivated and have high morale. Once you keep a group of people down enough, you're costing money. We could save more money and be more productive if we had happier people. We all come here for the paycheck regardless of how much we like our jobs. There certainly is a financial component to the employee issues, but money is only a motivator to a certain point. DOT has some excess and it's difficult to do anything with an employee who's not performing well.”

Finally, the group noted the absence of a category for the political climate, which affects what they do on a daily basis. When asked to connect this concept to sustainability, one participant commented: “There are certain times when I can have a valued engineering effort or decision on something, and because of the business, municipality, or social group, I’m unable to implement that. There’s certainly a place for politics in keeping it honest and getting views expressed, but when entitlement comes because of the politics, it can be a problem.” When asked if it could fit under one of the focus areas, one participant stated that “we would need a huge card to cover all of them.” It was noted that politics could be either a barrier to or supportive of any of the focus areas or practices.

Input on Focus Areas

Participants were then asked to work in groups and make edits to the focus area posters. Ms. Lane presented this exercise as an opportunity for the participants to examine the focus areas and to do some questioning and revising of their own. Participants were encouraged to think about these questions during the exercise:

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Do the focus areas and descriptions resonate with you?

Do they adequately relate to your area of work?

What’s missing?

Is there anything sensitive, anything that doesn’t make sense, etc.? Ms. Lane mentioned that “sustainable organization/internal sustainability” was not represented in the list, but suggested that it could perhaps fit in with the financial and economic investment focus area. There was a brief discussion before the exercise began on the meaning of “Transportation-Land Use Integration”. One participant mentioned that this is more difficult in North Carolina because NCDOT has no control over land use. Ms. Lane clarified that the focus area concept is referring more to the need for a connection between the two. After the 15-minute small group session, the group came back together for a discussion and recap. The feedback from this process is summarized below as well as in a “tracked-change” mark-up following the comments. This mark-up indicates specific wording revisions that were recommended by the group. Mobility, Accessibility, and Transportation-Land Use Integration

Reliable mobility o “Add ‘in context with the surrounding environment.’”

Improve mode choices and accessibility o “Could say ‘provide’ and have it in social investment instead.”

“It could go either way.” o “Add ‘which are financially sustainable’—with the Blue Line extension, I think some of

the numbers are being inflated. That’s not to say it’s not good for the neighborhood, but right now it’s not reducing the volume of traffic on the corridors. Are we getting bang for our buck? We’re not seeing it yet.”

“That was 50% federally funded, collected from all the states and redistributed. How does our current model make sense? People out in Kansas put money into this.

“NC is a donor state—paying for NJ,NY, CA, etc.” o “Investment in highways would make more sense to me.” o “If you build something before its time, it will be perceived as a failure and people won’t

have the appetite when it’s truly needed. The Southern Line is a great facility, but it was probably 15 years premature. We should have waited for the planning and increases in density to support it—it doesn’t make sense with current density levels. Sometimes I think we force these mobility choices rather than doing the master planning.”

Promote integration of transportation and land use o “Add ‘on a local level.’ In general, this is tied back into letting local areas sustain

themselves. It may be that I was thinking more in terms of improving mode choices and the whole theory of bringing money in from faraway places. I want to keep things local.”

o “There are concerns about accountability and responsibility.” “Whether to send these roads back to the county.”

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Financial and Economic Investment

Enhance the financial stability of DOT’s transportation system… o “Stop transfer of money from Trust Fund.”

Manage wise use of taxpayer dollars o “Revamp tax structure (gas tax); no gas?” o “Put dollars where the needs are (use engineering) and cost-benefit analysis.”

Promote economic vitality… o “This sounds more social—it’s financial, but it has a big social component. Do we really

need to be focused on that?” o Discussion of “build it and they will come” mentality—former DOT projects have been

built under that notion. o “We did a lot with economic development. Is that economic investment talking about

taxpayer money being invested or to create economic development?” Ms. Lane: “There is a difference—this means both of those things, anytime that

there’s some type of development that will increase the tax base.” o “If we’re going to take transportation money and build a facility for economic

development purposes, that’s different from economic investment—is that NC’s economic investment in the transportation system?”

o “Are we investing to generate economic development or to fulfill a need that’s already there?”

o “We always have people who want us to make an investment because of the economic tax base that will be coming in.”

Ms. Lane: “The work I do at a national level suggests that the transportation industry may be held partly accountable for showing how an investment shows economic return in terms of investment (i.e. TIGER grant program).”

“Is there even a discipline that analyzes or quantifies this?” o Ms. Lane: “yes!”

“That’s why I asked that question—I don’t think that’s clear.”

Effective cost assessment and decision making o “This means removing politics.”

Environmental Stewardship

General o “When we start talking about the environment, I don’t think we talk about some of the

things that transportation can do—a project can be held up for an environmental issue, but it would reduce congestion, etc. We don’t tout these benefits enough.”

“Why couldn’t we exploit that?” “We can stop a project for a rare mussel.” Ms. Lane: “It’s about the merger process, permitting, streamlining, etc.” “One day, dirt is going to be illegal.”

Increase energy conservation and efficiency o “This is broad—how?”

Improve operations and project development o “That’s very broad, it could mean a lot of different things.”

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o “I think the issue is that we don’t have measures for these things—if we had a measure before you, it would give you more insight into this. The issue is to select measures that the DOT can control.”

Improve the resiliency… o “This is wordy—clarify.”

Social Investment

Consider public health outcomes… o “How do public health outcomes differ from environmental?”

“Environmental is more about natural outcomes, public health is more of a human outcome.”

“I don’t know if I like public health ‘outcomes’—we shouldn’t, as a department, take ownership of somebody’s public health outcomes—that’s a personal thing.”

“Our mission is transportation, and we’re making a big leap when we’re saying our role should be concerned about public health.”

“If you take credit for somebody’s improved public health, the opposite could happen.”

Ms. Lane: “Is there a relationship between public health and safety?”

“There are more standards with safety.”

“Public safety is a sub-component of public health.”

“Fitness is also a sub-component—should we be responsible for this?”

“We should be responsible for safety when they’re in the transportation system; it’s a very broad statement and may need to be narrowed down.”

“In the process of evaluating ped/bike projects, higher marks are given to bike/ped facilities than to recreation facilities.”

“We are a transportation department—MPOs exist to help plan transportation projects, and they’re giving more preference to greenways that have a transportation component than to one that would just be for recreation.”

Improve safety and security… o “Security is very broad, and it might not be the same thing as safety. Is the DOT

responsible for somebody’s personal security?” Ms. Lane: “Do you work with property owners that are concerned with what

you’ve done and their security?”

All responded yes and one cited lighting as an example “When I read that statement, it implies that we’re responsible for security and I

don’t think that we really are.”

“Security means locking your doors.” o Ms. Lane: “You seem to have concerns about DOT taking ownership—about getting too

much responsibility for things.” “Again, I think as a social investment, public health and security are part of that,

but I would just like to see those statements softened because our core mission is not public health and security.”

Ms. Lane: “The measures need to align with the aspects the Department has control over and what they’re accountable for.”

“If we get spread too thin, we can’t sustain any of it.”

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“If we’re all things to all people…” o Ms. Lane: “The challenge is that transportation is the connector, the means to an end—

when you’re the means, you get associated with all the ends. It’s difficult, and it’s the challenge that we face as transportation professionals; we can’t separate ourselves from the ends.”

Enhance public awareness and participation… o “I understand public involvement—it’s the public’s money.”

Enhance quality of life o “This is not measurable.”

Ms. Lane gave an example of asking people on a scale of 1-10. o “Whose quality of life? We’re trying to satisfy the masses, not an individual person. It

would be different depending on who you ask. How do you implement it? It’s perceived differently based on who you are.”

o Ms. Lane: “Would you say that certain communities share certain things they would use to define quality of life?”

“Yes, certain basic tenants—schools, etc.—but we’re talking about transportation; what will a transportation project do for quality of life?”

“Transportation-wise, speed humps always come up in my homeowner’s association. When you start talking about quality of life, you’d be surprised on what people told me. Some people are against them because they want to speed!”

o “I’m not trying to get it taken out, but how do we measure it? It’s perception-based.” o “That’s why engineers have problems with this—we need planners!”

Use transportation investment as a tool to promote community development o “Revise to ‘as a component of’ instead. Any project can promote it—‘component of’ is

different because it’s a part of it, but shouldn’t be really used as a ‘build and they will come’ kind of thing.”

o “Land use and transportation should be planned together. A transportation investment should be part of a larger pursuit of community development—it shouldn’t be the ‘tool.’”

Suggested addition o “Add ‘provide transportation choices’ under Social Investment.”

“From a social standpoint, it would be nice to walk out your front door and decide whether to walk, bike or drive to work.”

A layout of comments and suggested revisions written on the focus area posters is provided on the following page.

Mobility, Accessibility and Transportation-Land Use Integration

Reliable mobility in context with the surrounding environment

Improve mode choices and accessibility which are financially sustainable

Promote integration of transportation and land use on a local level

Support livable communities through coordinated planning Financial and Economic Investment

Enhance the financial stability of DOT’s transportation system including balancing resources with needs

Manage wise use of taxpayer dollars

Promote economic vitality and competitiveness through transportation investments (leveraging other resources) which stimulate regional, local and community economic development

Effective cost assessment and decision making

Institutionalize sustainability as an agency value Environmental Stewardship

Protect the natural environment and conserve resources (ex: cross-training and accountability)

Increase energy conservation and efficiency (ex: outdated facilities?)

Improve NCDOT operations and project development (ex: expedite permitting process?)

Improve air quality and reduce greenhouse gas emissions

Protect and enhance water quality and quantity (ex: “stay out of the water” where feasible)

Improve the resiliency of natural and built environments to better manage the risk of climate related events such as flooding, drought, intense temperature fluctuations, high winds, etc.

Social Investment

Consider public health outcomes as a part of transportation decision making

Improve safety and security for travelers and communities

Enhance public awareness and participation (information and education; internal and external partners)

Enhance quality of life

Use transportation investment as a tool to promotecomponent of community development

Provide transportation choices

Comment [L1]: Stop transfer of money from Trust Fund

Comment [L2]: Revamp tax structure (gas tax); no gas?

Comment [L3]: Put dollars where the needs are (use engineering) and cost-benefit analysis

Comment [L4]: Social? Sounds like Hillsborough Street

Comment [L5]: This means removing politics

Comment [L6]: How?

Comment [L7]: Broad; how?

Comment [L8]: ?

Comment [L9]: Wordy…clarify

Comment [L10]: Not sure DOT should take ownership of health outcomes

Comment [L11]: Try to narrow down some to safety

Comment [L12]: What does this mean and to whom? Lock your doors? Change to mobility?

Comment [L13]: Concerned about taking ownership of individual personal security

Comment [L14]: Whose quality of life?

Comment [L15]: This is not measurable

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Summary of Focus Area Feedback During this exercise, Division participants noted a variety of concepts that should be revised and/or more clearly defined. An overarching concern was that many components of the focus areas were perceived to fall outside of NCDOT’s core mission. There was a real concern about taking ownership for certain outcomes, particularly those related to public health, security, and economic/community development. Participants seemed to view supporting economic and community development as a “build it and they will come” issue. This attests to the importance of pursuing educational efforts that clarify the relationship between transportation decisions and a variety of economic and community outcomes. In particular, these educational efforts should focus on establishing a clear link between transportation and public health, community security, and economic development (return on investment). Wrap-Up

Ms. Lane asked for feedback on the session—what participants liked, what their concerns were, and whether the video helped the discussion. The following comments were provided:

“Start earlier than 1:00.”

“I’d rather do something like this in the morning.”

“A lot of what we’re focusing on is inter-department, and we can only control based on the laws we’re given. I think we should manage up as part of this process—take it to the transportation oversight committee. We have to get consensus and buy-in at that level to ever make this type of stuff come to fruition—we have to plant the seeds before the rewards can come down.”

Ms. Lane explained the remainder of the outreach and Blueprint development process and posed two more wrap-up questions: What are you going to be looking for when you read a draft?

“How it impacts me.” What do you want to see that makes it seem like your time today was worthwhile? Participants wanted to ensure that the Blueprint would not become a document that sits on a shelf—that it works to remove obstacles and allow them to perform their jobs more effectively. Comments included:

“Simple, attainable goals.”

“Everything we’re talking about here is internal; some way of knowing that DOT is looking inside itself before it worries about this outside perception; what this really comes down to is probably to justify/explain ourselves to the legislature; simple, reasonable internal goals.”

“I would love to see a framework/strategy outline with a real attempt on how we’re going to remove the barriers we brought up today; if not, I’m just going to put it on a shelf; it’s a great vision, but if you don’t boil it down…; you’re talking to people who are used to getting things done—we need something we can use to get things done, where the rubber meets the road.”

“Who is the audience? Internally, or to show someone what we did?”

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o Ms. Lane: “Both.” o “I think that the perception internally is that our new performance measures (PDAs) are

just another example of a lot of wasted time, money and effort—overall perception of employees; if you were to put all this effort into the SB and it just comes out as this document…it really needs to have teeth, remove obstacles, allow us to do our jobs better; is it going to change anything, really? Or is it nothing but a document that’s going to be passed around and hung on the wall?”

o “IT issue is an internal issue—part of sustaining the organization.” o Ms. Lane: “You want something to change as a result of you being here; you gave some

ideas, things that could be changed.” o “Another outcome of the document could be formalizing what we’re already doing.”

“This is the documentation, here are the obstacles, here are our next steps.” Ms. Lane thanked the participants for their time and input. The meeting was adjourned at 4:17PM.