• Champion the cause, "talk-the-talk" so that employees relate the importance of CIA to their day-to-day work.
• Network, coordinate, partner, conduct extensive interagency and community outreach; build consensus; promote internal and external collaborative problem-solving and mutual understanding in mission accomplishment throughout transportation desicionmaking.
• Promote and support public involvement as a continuous process from planning through maintenance.
• Encourage all organizational disciplines to work more closely together.
  
  

  Where to begin:

• Identify CIA advocates within the organizations as resource staff.
• Perform a self-assessment to determine where the organization stands on CIA.
• Consult CIA reference materials: U.S. Department of Transportation,
  • Community Impact Assessment: A Quick Reference for Transportation
  • Community Impact Mitigation: Case Studies
  • Flexibility in Highway Design
• Network with other transportation organizations engaging in CIA principles.
• Network with Federal Highway Administration Resource Centers and the Office of Human Environment.
  
  

• "Walk-the-walk" through modifications of operational procedures and practices.
• Identify common goals and objectives with other agencies and communities, and develop processes to build on mutual goals.
• Forge cooperative processes and integrated programs by developing operational agreements with other agencies, local governments and advocacy organizations.
• Accommodate community needs, where reasonable, feasible, and within the organization's purview.
• Facilitate dialogue between parties where identified issues are to solve, so that issues are not dropped, but are addressed and resolved by others.
• Formally document and track communities to ensure they are incorporated and fully implemented.
• Leverage and pool funding resources efficiently and effectively to solve community problems.

  Where to begin:

• Assemble a CIA Steering Committee which is interagency in scope to guide the institutionalizing process.
• Review policies, procedures, manuals, practices, and other operational materials and update to include CIA principles.
• Promote CIA principles through outreach with all organizational staff.
• Develop promotional materials highlighting CIA principles and related action items.
  
  

Integrate

• Metropolitan planning organizations and local governments begin the process with early identification of community issues and establishing system improvements to address community issues through the Long Range Transportation Plan and Transportation Improvement Program.
• Federal, State, and local resource agencies should be involved in transportation planning. They bring to the table environmental requirements and issues that, if addressed early, can alleviate later conflicts and bring about mutual goal attainment in program development.
• Advocacy groups, community stakeholder groups, and individual citizens must be involved. They are the key to successfully determining the need of the project, and identifying the associated community value issues which need to be addressed and integrated into project planning.
• As projects advance, all functional areas of the organization must be involved to develop the cooperative, continuous relationship that will complete the improvements, integrate programs, and bring about resolution to many community problems along the way.

  Where to begin:

• Build positive resource-agency contact relationships.
• Build CIA into resource allocation plans:
  • Training
  • Staff resources
  • Time
• Link processes and procedures within and outside of the organization.
  
  

Engage

• Success with CIA will occur only if people within and outside of the organization participate in the transportation desicionmaking process, beginning in planning and continuing beyond project development. This participation must include not just communities, but resources agencies, governmental agencies, advocacy groups, and all disciplines of the organization.
• Management should work to ensure that all parties understand the principles and benefits of CIA.
• Apply a shared-decisionmaking approach to planning and project development that resolves conflicts. Once the potential of this approach is understood, all parties will want to actively take part in it!

  Where to begin:

• Focus on the CIA process in existing projects.
• Be proactive and seek input through cooperation and involvement.
• Open the organizational processes by collaborating with others.
• Establish training programs
  • Borrow from other organizations with successful programs and training courses.
  • Train local, State, and Federal participants.
• Take a "do it right the first time" attitude.