Better Outcomes: Improving Accountability & Transparency in Transportation Decision-Making

Authors

Robert Zako, University of Oregon
Rebecca Lewis, University of Oregon

Sponsor

This report was funded in part by the National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC), a program of the Transportation Research and Education Center at Portland State University and a U.S. Department of Transportation university transportation center.

Document Type

Report

Publication Date

2017

Subjects

Transportation -- United States -- Planning, Transportation -- Planning -- Political aspects, Transportation and state -- Decision making -- Analysis

Abstract

This report aims to help policymakers and staff at all levels of government make transportation investments that serve the public better.

Amazingly, we simply don’t know how effective government spending is at achieving the outcomes the public expects and has been promised! Clearly, taxpayer dollars buy roads, bus service, airports, ferry service, and other transportation facilities and services. But it is unclear how well such investments help get people where they want to go, create jobs, improve public health, support community development, and provide other benefits. In other words, it is uncertain how cost-effectively the means (transportation investments) achieve the ends (public benefits)—how much “bang for the buck” transportation investments provide.

States, metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) and local governments have opportunities to incorporate outcomes into all phases of transportation decision-making. This report recommends that governments make transportation investment decisions using a four-phase outcomes-based cycle: planning, governance & finance, programming, and reporting.

In more detail, this report offers eight sets of recommendations.

Description

This is a report, NITC-875, from the NITC program of TREC at Portland State University, and can be found online at: http://nitc.trec.pdx.edu/research/project/875

The Project Brief can be found here: http://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/22660

The presentations associated with this report are included here as supplemental files.

DOI

10.15760/trec.184

Persistent Identifier

http://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/22659

Recommended Citation

Robert Zako and Rebecca Lewis. Better Outcomes: Improving Accountability & Transparency in Transportation Decision-Making. NITC-875. Portland, OR: Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC), 2017. https://doi.org/10.15760/trec.184