Between January and June 2018, NACTO interviewed key project development and leadership teams in seven North American cities to better understand how they  prioritize street transportation projects. The purpose of these interviews was to learn what system those cities use to prioritize projects, how prioritization is tied to stated city goals or strategies (e.g., Council goals, Mayoral goals, agency goals, etc.), and  whether those strategies successfully support a city’s efforts to build priority projects. Learning about how project prioritization is structured in other cities was valuable for thinking about how to create a system in Pittsburgh.

Cities interviewed:

• Cambridge, MA
• Portland, OR
• Los Angeles, CA
• Seattle, WA
• Minneapolis, MN
• Vancouver, Canada
• Oakland, CA

At the same time, NACTO also worked closely with DOMI leadership to create and facilitate two in-person organizational design workshops to take key staff through the process of creating a project prioritization framework and build consensus and buy-in between leadership and the budget office about priorities. The workshops served to build internal DOMI alignment in advance of a prioritized project list. Building on discussions with DOMI staff and leadership, as well as in-depth conversations with several other cities about their systems, the Assistant Director of Planning, Policy, and Permitting developed a system and mapping application to prioritize projects using three key data points: equity, safety, and state of good repair.

City structures for prioritizing transportation projects generally fall into three main categories that we named “Opportunity Driven,” “Plan Driven,” and “Policy Driven,” as diagrammed on the following page. The cities interviewed for this project use creative and evolving methods to prioritize transportation projects. While most cities use parts of all three structures, grouping the approaches into these three categories helped us to best describe the loudest and often most influential forces driving project prioritization.

Interviews with project prioritization teams in other cities also made it clear that project prioritization is both a science and an art and no one model guarantees success. A quantitative system (ranking, scoring, weighting) using existing data sources is valuable for culling down a long list of projects. But getting to a true shortlist requires qualitative review by city staff who consider everything from local politics to neighborhood context to community support when finalizing their department’s project requests.

NACTO found that a strong vision from the top was at the core of every process that successfully supported a city’s efforts to build priority projects. In most cities, this vision is demonstrated through strategic documents that communicate to the public, agency staff, and other city agencies the priorities for the transportation agency. Decisions about projects are most easily made when agency leadership can prioritize broad visions into clear, measurable outputs – e.g., “reduce fatalities to zero,” “increase percent of residents within ¼ mile of transit,” etc. Explicit support and goal-setting from City Council or the Mayor can set a direction for the agency that it can lean on over the course of several years of budget requests.

In Pittsburgh, scheduled and structured conversations between DOMI leadership and the budget office improved transparency about the budget office’s constraints and DOMI’s priorities. Conversations like these, which this year have occurred prior to the budget cycle, and have happened on an ongoing basis, are critical for developing buy-in on the project prioritization process. A structured discussion between both agencies helped to reveal that the budget office supports DOMI’s priorities, but relies on DOMI to provide concrete justification for their requests and accurate budget estimates. In the same vein, both agencies agreed about the value of and need for developing planning documents—something that had previously seemed unlikely.

In an “Opportunity Driven” system, cities often utilize a series of plans, external funding opportunities, and paving schedules to select projects that they know can be delivered within a given time frame. The driving force behind which projects are prioritized or selected for delivery may vary from year to year based on opportunities and politics. But cities are making it work, and are getting projects done despite having no clearly defined system for prioritizing projects.

Pros
Flexible; evolving

Cons
Subject to external forces (politics, advocates, etc.); not strategic

In a “Plan Driven” system, cities are heavily guided by citywide and agency planning documents that often clearly define transportation priorities and may even identify a long-list of projects. Sometimes these plans exist because of previous policy decisions, and often plans allow for opportunistic decision-making. But a strong plan lays out clear goals and strategies that cities can lean on year over year.

Pros
Often strategic; long-lasting; concrete; approved

Cons
Requires updates; can be out of date; may not have buy-in; not tied to funding

Cities that utilize “Policy Driven” systems often rely on City Council, Mayor, or voter mandates to prioritize a specific but broad topic (e.g., safety, equity, access) that drives an agency prioritization process that is developed through that frame. In a “Policy Driven” system, transportation departments are often tasked with developing plans that cement combined agency and city goals and create a roadmap for future work.

Pros
High priority; relevant; often accompanied by funding; strategic

Cons
Broad; unstructured; open to interpretation