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JIM THORNE: Hello and welcome to VPI Conversations— a video series investigating the virtual public
involvement practices that State and local agencies use for transportation planning
and project development. VPI Conversations is part of the Federal Highway Administration's
virtual public involvement program—an Every Day Counts initiative. My name is Jim Thorne and I'm
with the Federal Highway Office of Planning, and today I'll be speaking with Katina Lear, the
Assistant Director of Strategic Communications at the Georgia Department of Transportation,
Amber Phillips, the Assistant State Environmental Administrator at GDOT, and Bobby Dollar, an
Environmental Transportation Manager at GDOT, about the institutionalization of virtual
public involvement and VPI strategies for project development and environmental review. Thank you all
for joining us today. So could you talk a little bit about why Georgia DOT got started with virtual
public involvement, and what the agency's goals are for using VPI?
KATINA LEAR: Sure. So the agency wanted to really
emphasize and look at ways that we could reach people where they are. We in the past
have struggled with having attendance and folks show up to our in-person meetings, so in an effort
to look at additional ways to reach people, as I said, where they are, at convenient times to them,
we we started to look at building out our virtual presence in presenting these projects.
BOBBY DOLLAR: We identified that most people, roughly 90%, are on the internet or have access to a
smartphone, so that really assists them to get a better outreach and that was the goal.
That VPI is going to get the word out better than just advertising
for a meeting that people just were not attending. JIM: So Georgia DOT has piloted a number of different
virtual public involvement strategies. Could you talk a little bit about some of the tools that
you've used in your work. AMBER PHILLIPS: Yeah I can talk about that.
We've used some of the regular survey tools
such as Survey Monkey, MetroQuest, to take surveys in planning, and we also have used our ESRI
project platform, which is our preferred platform now for our virtual public involvement, as well
as using things such as MS Teams and Zoom to hold and host meetings with the public so that they could
listen to presentations, view materials. We could walk them through how to view materials online
and they are able to ask questions and get their questions answered live.
JIM: It sounds like Georgia DOT
uses this all-in-one software platform to support your VPI efforts. Could you give me a high level
overview about what that platform is? AMBER: Sure, so that platform is our
ESRI public involvement platform,
and what that is—it's a virtual platform for public involvement that you can develop your
individual project web pages into that program, and we're able to utilize templates to upload
information quickly to create that project web page. And as part of that web page you can
insert your live virtual event links. From there we've been able to use virtual rooms to simulate
actually what a meeting would look like if you're attending a meeting
and walking through and reviewing materials. As well as you're commenting on the project
and your calendar of your upcoming future events. KATINA: The ability of the public to follow our pages
is really instrumental in us being able to get to a point as an agency to be able to
start the process on the portal in the planning phase and be able to potentially build out pages
off of that planning study that go into concept and into the environmental phase
and hopefully go in through construction. And the public will be able to follow that process
on that one particular page or multiple pages and anytime an update is made to that page, if
the public is following that page, they will get a notification.
JIM: So it sounds like Georgia DOT is
working to institutionalize VPI into the public involvement program or the process.
And what does that institutionalization look like within Georgia DOT?
KATINA: It allows the department
to have that consistent look and feel of every project looks the same when the public looks at
it on the portal, and it also allows the department internally to meet the standards and guidelines
set forward by our IT department, and also it allows our internal staff to be able to utilize
a templated format of the projects that we're presenting to the public.
JIM: So how do you evaluate
the effectiveness of specific virtual public involvement strategies or tools as you go along?
AMBER: When we're asking the public for their feedback on the project we're also asking for feedback on the
process, and the process includes the materials. How we've responded to comments in a meeting, whether
that's a virtual meeting or an in-person meeting. Was the information presented well, understandable?
How did they hear about it? How they hear about that so we can improve how we're communicating
and advertising our meetings. And we're able to compile a report and pick the most important
things to work on for improvement over the next year and we share those with the entire department
who is involved. Anyone who's involved with public involvement, we share that with them.
JIM: So it sounds like you've been using VPI for a lot of project development and in the environmental
review process. So what is it about project development/environmental review that makes
VPI the way to go? BOBBY: So the NEPA document tells
the story of the whole environmental process.
So when we have CE's, or categorical exclusions, those are your
lowest impact to the environment. With VPI and some of our opportunities that we identified,
such as right now we're creating the website, that those CE-level type projects, those would
be really great candidates for the website, and to allow people the opportunity to visit the website
at their convenience.
And incorporating VPI, and instead of holding the physical public meetings, and conducting more
online-type meetings and creating these websites, it's just gonna streamline the process, if anything.
Because now we don't have to mobilize a group of people and make it down, have to drive
down to a certain area. All of this can be done interactively in real time and people
can go online anytime to access information probably better than they would if
they were just in person when they lay their eyes on a set of plans.
JIM: So let's talk a little
bit about Georgia DOT's use of online meetings could you talk a little bit about what
those look like in the process of planning and conducting those meetings?
AMBER: We're able to identify
those specialties that are going to have the most comments and get them into a centralized location
and actually present the project live, and where we're at in the process, what our project website
looks like, and start opening up the question and answer format so that they could respond live and
walk people through areas. JIM: So how do you engage low
broadband communities who may struggle to connect
to online meetings and other virtual tools? AMBER: We have done text messaging
to citizens especially if we
know they're in those types of areas that may not be getting on their computer but
they have their phones, and we're also collecting databases of those communities so that if they
aren't in our Every Door Direct Mail poll that we can send them a separate letter to advertise and
those letters can go out in multiple languages if needed for the area.
JIM: Very good. Are there
implications for rural communities with virtual public involvement methods?
AMBER: So we have even on
our bigger level projects where we've done virtual online events you also have the ability to call in.
You can't see anything if you just call in, but you can listen and other things that we're looking at
are being able to present things on the public broadcasting networks as well so that they
may be able to see visual in the future, so we're still exploring those options for those to reach
those communities. but we'll still if we need to, if they don't have any of those abilities then
we will still of course go and meet with them at an in-person meeting or even one-on-one if need be.
JIM: So how has Georgia DOT used project visualizations to support public involvement?
BOBBY: We had a visual engineering resource group that was set up, or we call it VERG. It basically the group is
charged with depending on the project type will create a video or a visualization for
anybody in the public to be able to view a drive-through of the project. Sometimes
it'll have an aerial, sometimes it'll have a before and after, but usually it's going to just be a
drive-through. so it'll show you you know what the changes are going to be overlaid with the existing
conditions. So it's been a really great tool for us to use not only just in our physical meetings when
we were holding those about three or four years ago, but now we actually use those videos as well
in our websites, our ESRI websites and the portals for the online meetings that we've had already.
JIM: What types of visualizations have you found to be particularly effective?
AMBER: A visual works very well if you have a larger project with multiple access points on the interstate so such as
our Major Mobility Improvement projects. Those projects may have different access points to
access managed lanes or some of those projects are also complex interchange improvements. And
so, especially if there's a complex interchange movement that is connecting two interstates,
those visualizations are very important to the public to be able to see how they're going to be
improved and how they're going to connect when there are so many different bridge structures.
KATINA: Having the the VERG group or unit is really really beneficial because even if they don't have
necessarily the files to do that particular project they they do have generic
roundabout footage and files and simulations that still would pertain to how to utilize those
intersections and those innovative designs.
JIM: So did Georgia DOT experience any
challenges with the use of VPI strategies and perhaps you have some lessons learned to share?
AMBER: So it was very challenging to choose the program to use as our platform for virtual
public involvement. So those were some of the more technical challenges and some of
the other challenges: number one, we had to tell people how to use it. How to go about the process,
how to come up with the web pages, so some of the training that went into all of that. It's
really easy to get distracted and look at things that else that are coming out brand new and other
ideas. It's really important to make sure that you continue moving forward once you make a decision.
KATINA: That and trying to get folks to understand that we all have the same common goal. We just need to
think about the the holistic approach of public involvement and community engagement, and really
just try to break ourselves out of silos and look at it again from a holistic standpoint of
not just serving that particular subject matter but also serving the overall department.
JIM: Well now that Georgia DOT has had this experience with virtual public involvement, what tips or advice
would you give to someone who's just starting out with VPI?
KATINA: Early on we have a really great public
involvement working group that we pulled together, and so having all those folks sitting at the table
and really kind of helped us be able to understand where we were, where we are now, and where we want
to go. Go ahead and get that group together. Get as many people at the table as you think
are going to be needed to add to that conversation and talk about where you where you've been
and, as I said, where you are, and where you want to go.
AMBER: And to add on to that ensure that you're
really communicating with your IT office and your procurement office so that you know
what the rules are going to be and how you need to go about obtaining a program or a process or a
software. KATINA: And one last thing that I would say, too,
is that again with with any public involvement
there is not a cookie cutter format. So what worked on one may not work for the other. So just
stay flexible, be willing to try new things, and be willing to sometimes know and understand that, "Wow,
that kind of fell flat," or that didn't necessarily work. How can we tweak it, how can we
build upon what we've already put in place and make the experience better.
JIM: Thanks again
to Katina Leer, Amber Phillips, and Bobby Dollar of Georgia DOT for speaking with us today. If you
want to watch more VPI Conversations or learn more about virtual public involvement strategies please
visit the website on the screen or click the link in the description. Thanks for joining us.
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