Cross Currents; Public Forum on Automobility in Chittenden County, Part 2 of 3

This is Vermont Public Radio forums crosscurrents a series of lectures and public discussions exploring issues of concern in Vermont. In April in May of this year the citizens for responsible growth with the cooperation of the University of Vermont Church Street center sponsored a series of three public forums under the heading auto mobility in Chittenden County. What does the future hold. On May 14th at St. Paul's Cathedral in Burlington The topic was how can professionals and citizens work together. The roles of public officials experts and special interest groups in highway planning the panelists are Bruce Houghton a transportation engineer Fred Silva chy X secretary of transportation from Massachusetts and Vincent Bolduc a sociologist from St. Michael's College and went to ski. Joe Knight of the citizens for responsible growth was the forum's organizer and she explained to Vermont Public Radio's Fred Wasser the purpose of the discussions. I was aware of the fact that throughout the county there were. It's immense number of rather large scale road projects planned

and didn't notice very much dialogue or community discussion on any of them and was concerned I've come from a background in Washington D.C. About 10 years ago where I was involved with a group there that was fighting some proposed highway projects. I didn't see such a group here and I wanted to do something that would help some of the basic issues and value questions associated with road building get aired. Joe Knight of the citizens for responsible growth Jenny Stoller of the University of Vermont Department of Education served as the forums moderator. The discussion as it was put together was intended to stimulate a wide range of discussion. A second purpose however and certainly the purpose of the funding source the Vermont Council on the humanities and public issues is to enable the public to see what

contributions scholars from various humanities disciplines can in fact have in discussions of this nature. For example the final session has sociologist who raised very clearly some some basic value questions. Earlier we had a political scientist who spoke about a non quantifiable costs and benefits. We've talked about change history as a dimension in transportation. Those are humanities concerns humanities issues that this particular format could bring to bear because it directly brought scholars from particular disciplines into the discussion. Jenny Stoller explaining the purpose of the series of public forums on a mobility inch and counting. What does the future hold. She now introduces the speakers for tonight's discussion of the humanities scholar on the panel this evening is Vince Bolduc. He is sitting all the way to

my right. Vince has a Ph.D. in urban sociology and he's a full time faculty member at St. Michael's College. I'm singling him out a little bit because he is a humanities scholar he is trained in a particular discipline and he views the world from that particular framework. Vince is not going to speak first he's going to speak less. OK. Our other two panelists are actually practitioners they're professionals. They are involved in the transportation planning process in one way or another and have input into it. As you know that the topic for this evening is the whole question of how citizens and professionals can work together on transportation planning and other things. What are the areas where professionals have special expertise and therefore should be given a free rein. What are the areas perhaps where citizens should have more input than they have now. How can we go about getting these two groups to work together. Perhaps better than they have worked in the past. That is the the over

riding theme this evening. As some of you are aware last time we talked about ideals What would we like to come out of the transportation planning process especially with regard to automobile use. And there was sort of a consensus in the audience that what we would like to see in the future is perhaps less use of automobiles overall. All right but people felt fairly unanimously that we want a diversity of modes of transportation available to us different modes of transportation perhaps less overall reliance on the automobile. And we also should give perhaps some more thought than we have been doing to the whole question of why are we moving around so much what what is this mobility all about. And maybe that affects the whole decision making process. Let me introduce our first panelist each panelist will speak for about 15 minutes here this evening and then we'll open up for questions so I'm going to ask you to hold your questions to all three people have spoken. OK. The first panelist is sitting to my immediate right

Bruce Houghton. Bruce is an engineer and a consultant. He's the president of Traficon Systems Incorporated. And if you look at the list of municipalities for which Bruce has done consulting you'll find that there's an awful lot of Chittenden County communities among those. So he has some special expertise he can share with us. Bruce thank you. I think the format of which I would like to address the topic of how citizens can get involved in transportation planning is basically to first of all review a project which I had some involvement in are actually quite quite a lot of involvement in regarding the evaluation of a highway project that had been completed and as a result of the of the project the Connecticut Department Transportation received a great deal of const of criticism from a local community because of what

they felt was a lack of citizen involvement in determining not only the location of the project the design characteristics of the project but really the fate of the project. And as a follow up to that I'd like to just kind of highlight if I could about what is termed in the field of transportation planning and traffic and traffic engineering and the action plan. Maybe some of you people are familiar with a document Doree process called an action plan. As a result of a great deal of. Rapid highway construction during the 50s and 60s mainly the interstate highway program became very evident to many tickly Federal Highway Administration people and also state highway department people that

because of the essence of time and the structure that went into setting up the interstate program that a lot of decisions were made and a lot of movements were made without ever involving the general public and really the general public in many respects ended up being the. Thought the holder of the package once it was completed and many times it created problems in a community separation of community characteristics. Just an overall division between communities because of the way that the highway projects were laid out over the way that it segregated various communities. As a result of that and in conjunction with that the concern over the environment and environmental considerations in regard to highway projects

that the federal government is part of that program for funding highway projects came up with a procedure or are asked in each individual state to develop a procedure called an action plan. And this action plan basically is to set out a guideline by which the individual states would follow the process of first of all identifying the need for a particular highway project and then as the need has been substantiated or at least identified it they would then begin to involve the local community in. Assessing various corridors or alternative location of that that a highway corridor could be identified in

and also to pick out sensitive areas within a highway corridor that they were looking at in sensitive areas are basically termed as cemeteries. Public buildings particularly schools hospitals or conservation areas. You can go on and on and list a number of them but these are the kinds of sensitive areas that that highway departments as part of their action plan process were asking about is to identify and assist them in looking at various alternative highway corridors. Given that they have determined that a new new highway facility was necessary as part of the corrective action. Also the. Highway Department in general based on guidelines from the Federal Highway Administration were setting up citizens advisory groups or citizen involvement groups for the particular purpose of

working with these groups as a means of gathering public information about the the idea of a new highway corridor and what they would like to see the function of the highway perform and where would I see it located and whether or not they felt there was any any need for a highway and so they the action plan is basically a guideline for the purpose of setting out the policies and procedures for first of all identifying a need for a highway project. The procedure for going forward with the potential location of a highway and getting the general public involved early in the process in the location process and then also to continually keep the general public in the public officials of a community involved in the design process. The evaluation of the economic environmental impacts.

Getting local communities involved in input into the environmental impact statement process and just keeping the general public informed and providing an opportunity for input into a highway design project. Now as a result of this and as a graduate student at the University of Connecticut I undertook a project for the Connecticut Department of Transportation to evaluate a highway project in Mystic Connecticut to give you a little bit of background this project was initially developed in the early 1960s as part of the initial construction of in a state 95 through Groton Connecticut and into the state of Rhode Island. As part of that project too is a secondary highway which was basically considered to be a spur that

connected and interstate interchange to a US highway route and the Connecticut Obama transportation thought this was a necessary highway project in order to provide a safe and efficient movement of vehicles from the interstate down to the US route. Because of a difference of opinion between the Connecticut Department Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration over the funding of the project in whether or not it should be included as part of a federal aid project or whether it should be a toll used state project the project was abandoned and the the construction of the interstate system continued. Without this particular spur project the project laid fallow within the drawers of the plan files of the Connecticut Department Transportation until some time in one thousand seventy two. Almost ten years had passed since this project

had been discussed. In any extent in 1972 the legislature in the state of Connecticut finally with the urging of various public officials in Mystic Connecticut finally appropriate a sum of money to construct this project and had sent forward to the Connecticut Department of Transportation. The message that okay we have a proper way the funds we want you to go ahead and build this project. Local public officials in the legislature said that the community wants this project and so let's go for it. So the Connecticut apartment transportation took that mandate to build this project and immediately took the plans out of the out of the file drawers started updating plans to the latest design standards had some communication with the local selectman to bring them up to date on various design changes and and just let them

know that the project was going forward. And then. There seemed to be a groundswell of local officials local public citizens people who live along this this corridor. The project of the road name was called Alan Street and Alan Street. Prior to construction of this highway spur was a dead end road. It was basically a just a short residential street which dead ended and well basically it was a forest conservation type area although it was not necessarily identified as such. The local citizens that lived along this highway corridor were exceptionally irritated at the project they had found out through the grapevine that I would apartment door the Connecticut apartment transportation was going to construct this project and began to build up

a citizens group to resist the project. And it developed into a real sensitive emotional issue and it really sort of split the communities right down the middle between those who supported the project and those who who were against the project and who has a great deal of controversy that finally brought the Connecticut Department Transportation to decide that. Well I guess we better have a public hearing or a public information meeting. So they went to mystic and set up a public information meeting and attempted to gather input into this particular project. And it's the way the format of the public hearing went. It appeared that the Connecticut apartment transportation was down gathering information although they seemed to make it clear to the general public that.

They had been mandated by the Connecticut legislature to continue with this project and they really didn't have any choice. They were just down there to gather the information and if there are any small concerns they would attempt to address those but as far as whether or not the project was build or not they really didn't have that jurisdiction. Consequently again the the the arguments over the wrold continued right through until the contract was awarded. There were people out there tying themselves to trees when in Iraq they are getting ready to do the construction and it was an extremely emotional issue. So after the project was built and the sensitivity of the project continued the Connecticut Department Transportation asked the University of Connecticut in the Civil Engineering Department a University of Connecticut to go in and do an evaluation of this project to find out

where they went wrong or what did they do wrong or were they wrong. They wanted to have a totally unbiased evaluation of this project. As it related to the involvement of the Connecticut Department Transportation and the involvement of local communities at this at this very time was when the Department Transportation was preparing their action plan or what they called a pace report which would stand for plan for action concerning environmental resources. And they wanted to find out based on the draft action plan that they had prepared. Whether or not they indeed followed the guidelines that they were preparing as a policy and procedure statement. So we undertook to do the project and we went down. We interviewed all the people that were that participated in public hearings. And we through all of the records of the Connecticut Department Transportation

all the internal memos all the correspondence that went back and forth between public officials and the Connecticut Department Transportation legislative officials and all of the proceedings that took place on this project. And we basically came up with the conclusion. That the Connecticut Department Transportation because of the time lapse between the initial project in 1982 and bringing out the project to be implemented in 1972 that there were a great deal of social attitudes that had changed the almost almost 100 percent turnover of residents on Alan Street between 1962 and 1900 to again just the general overall philosophical attitude toward highway construction had changed from 962 to 972 and that the Connecticut Department Transportation neglected to go

back to the community and do an adequate survey of the people to find out what the ratatouille were about its role or to. Approached them for their input before they ever went any further then then then just bringing the plans out of the out of the files and we felt that this was a worthwhile study and I think that the Department Transportation felt it was worthwhile. The local citizens felt that the report was extremely unbiased that we had given an ample opportunity for everybody to get their input into the project and the analysis. And that although there were still citizens who were highly anti Connecticut apartment transportation and very sensitive and emotional about the project. I think everybody felt that that at least a Connecticut apartment transportation made an attempt to evaluate

a potential problem and to determine where they may have gone wrong and to try and improve on their their planning process so that things like this hopefully wouldn't occur in the future. So that's basically. My background in my involvement and to a certain extent in community involvement in highway planning and I think probably there are many lessons that I could learn from that one particular project about community involvement in the fact that there has to be a good line of communication between the professionals who are doing the planning and the people who are going to be receiving the project. And I think again at this line of communication is set up early in the process so that everybody can basically get all their

concerns down to some kind of account a common denominator that there can be a good working relationship between the professional people who are attempting to solve what they feel is a need corrective action and to solve that problem. To the extent that local citizens can live with the corrective action whatever the corrective action is. Right. Right. OK. Our second panelist is not a Vermonter. He's from Massachusetts. Fred salvo cheap. He is a former secretary of transportation for the state of Massachusetts. He is now at the Center for Transportation Studies at MIT and he too has a wealth of diverse background I think that he can share with us. And I thank you. I guess I'd like to talk about some of my experiences as a

transportation planner wearing various hats and some observations I made about the changes in the transportation planning process. Some of them senility us. The whole process is undergone very major changes over the past decade especially in terms of the role of professional expertise in the role of experts the role of special interest groups and the role of of citizens. There was a view of the transportation system in the 50s and 60s that that had a certain almost mythological quality to it that there was somehow a perfect plan somewhere that God had in his mind and the plan is new god. And one had to do was know the right magic words and in one could divine what this world His perfect plan was and. And once a technically correct plan were arrived upon one shouldn't really challenge it because it was it was almost a set of

physical relationships like like physics or chemistry or some reasonably exact science. In point of fact what we're dealing with is public policy in a democracy especially a public policy is a product of interests and the way various interest groups pressure the public policy to bring their point of view to bear upon upon the public process that's that the way it is. That's the way it ought to be in the. The kind of learning process that went on in the Boston area that I was part of was one where the a major transportation plan was put forward by the state agencies which involved a whole set of interstate highways coming into the center of Boston essentially the concept in Boston was sort of Boston as a hub which it's like to call itself probably

a hundred years now because the railroads were built that way and Boston was the center of the universe which it likes to think of itself as in all of these roads would come in and then there'd be a little you know a belt that would go around the absolute center of Boston and you'd have a sort of set of concentric circles that be at one point there was a plan that had. And in a belt and then there was an inner inner belt on and there was an intermediate belt. And then there was an auto belt on and it was an auto intermediate belt I think there were five concentric rings a couple of them got built for those you another Boston area this Route 128 and Route 495 which form sort of concentric rings around the city city. The transportation issue really heated up when the attempt was made to move into Route 128 with the radial highways and the you know Belt circumferential that was was close to the center of the city. And I think it's important to note historically that the may the first

major highway built was 128 which was circumferential around the city about 10 miles out that went through an area that was essentially undeveloped essentially and woodland not much housing relocation probably no job relocation at all and that the highway building process sort of started from the outside and started moving into this the center of the city. The. When we get to that point later the. There I got involved heavily around 1062 working just out of school working as a volunteer with citizen groups in one of the community was always going to be impacted by one of the interstate highways was carrying number interstate 695 which was the you know belt and the

initial reaction to a proposed eight line interstate highway going through the middle of a neighborhood that was going to displace just within Cambridge roughly fifteen hundred units of housing around thirty five hundred jobs and dumped a lot of traffic onto a local street that was already not functioning very well at all. And basically make a lot of three major changes in a fabric of an old neighborhood. The reaction to that was first. This is a an interruption. In the life of this neighborhood kind of go somewhere else. Not questioning the concept of the road itself but just doesn't have to be in my neighborhood does it have to take my house. Does it have to disrupt my church etc.. The group group started to form a citizens group and a group of technical advisors who started out on those kinds of questions exploring the possibility of alternative

alignments and over time raised more and more questions about should the road be built at all was it really needed what kind of a city did we want the from a certain point of view. I don't know how much to bore you with the details of the Boston metropolitan area but from a certain point of view what was happening was that the the client group that that the original planets had sought to serve had basically not included the inner city neighborhoods and had ignored a whole set of interests in. As those interests understood that they had an interest and it was their house was going to be taken the church was going to be affected etc. and started to press upon the system both directly and bureaucratically and politically. The essential issue that was raised from one point of view was that the client group had been wrong the professionals who

planned the system originally had not recognised that they were serving clients in point of fact there were a set and informal reference group of of interest that they were serving contractors and construction workers who would stand to gain from major construction people interested in real estate development in this in the suburbs which were opened up through the road programme and. That I don't know would quickly add that I'm not suggesting there's anything wrong in the fact that somebody is interested being served in fact there would have been something wrong if somebody's interest weren't going to be served because why would you spend all that money and go to all that trouble if it wasn't doing good for someone. Point was that when they were building Route 128 out in the woods and farmland that seemed to bother no one. And to benefit some set of people so there was a lot of forward motion and a lot of roads get built and people were fairly happy with the product.

When it started to move into an area with significant dishpan if it's occurred then people started to raise the question of why is this happening and why wasn't i involved in the process. So. From one one point of view you could take the whole history of what happened in Boston and without going through the whole thing I could say that from neighborhood groups in one city Cambridge seeking to defend their interests looking for allies reaching out to other neighborhood groups in other cities reaching out to their elected political officials reaching for technical expertise pressing their congressmen and senators and using every device they could find within federal and state law to defend themselves. Ultimately the governor of the state who at the time was governor Sargent called a halt to the whole construction process. Initiated

a restudy of the whole question of building interstate highways in the middle of the middle of the city and after a two year study process with lots of politicking going on from neighborhood groups and municipal officials and labor unions and contractors ultimately the governor Sargent decided not to build any more major interstate highways within Route 128 into shift those resources that would have gone into the highways into a transit program. So there was a certain substantive process that took place in the Boston area that started off with a major highway program on paper and ended up with a major transit program which is now under construction. But is that sort of the bricks and mortar and concrete side of the story but on the on the soft side of the story what really happened was a significant addition to the kinds of people who were considered part of the planning process part of the client group that had to be satisfied so that now in the transportation planning

process and as an action plan in Massachusetts too and a lot of the action plans are very much a product of the learning that went on in the 60s about how not to do a lot of things or how to improve on how things were done so that now when I want to project is conceived of there's a certain approach to it that says well when I'm at their whole bunch of sets of interests here and we have to consult those people we have to make sure that the people are fully informed of what's going on. From a bureaucrat's point of view you could say cynically because if you don't they'll get you sooner or later anyway so you might as well get it out of the way at the front end and and know what you've got coming before you get too far into it. The. I think there is there are two other points that I'd like to make about the experience in Boston. In addition to the concept of the the client group being broadened.

One is that the number of people actually intensively involved in the protest and the planning process and the revaluations etc. etc. never grew to a huge proportion of the number of people who live in the Boston metropolitan area. And it's a metropolitan area of 3 million people and I don't know maybe 100 maybe 200 maybe 300. Certainly certainly certainly not 10000. Maybe a thousand a pretty small percentage of the 3 million people who lives are going to be affected by the decisions. So one thing that I would like to emphasize is that the transportation planning process and any planning process isn't really a question of a majority vote. There isn't at least I've never seen a process that truly involves a major

cross-section of the community in the decision making process what happens is that the people who have who define themselves as having the strong interest in get involved and get active and learn the law and learn what the process is and make up their minds about what kinds of changes it like to see other people who have a disproportionate impact. And again there's nothing wrong in that because I think there's a self corrective mechanism which is the second point that I want to make which is that there are very small minority of people who actually get involved in insert a lot of energy into the process whether they're contractors who want to build something or labor union construction unions it see it is in their interest to push a project whether it's the Sierra Club or somebody who has a concept that that says we shouldn't build this facility. That rather small number of people who actually participate participate at the sufferance of a much larger group of people who either tolerate or don't

tolerate the points of view being expressed in a way that is by default is a much larger set of people who have a dissipating in the process. In the Boston metropolitan area the transportation system didn't get turned around as dramatically as it did because of 100 to 200 activists who were intensively involved in a process it could turned around because those activists were saying things that made sense to a much broader range of people the world had really changed in the early sixties or in the mid 50s when when the big highway program got going in Massachusetts there were a whole set of views of what the city was like. And they went something like the city is a bad place to bad place to live it's a bad place to bring up children it's dirty it's polluted. Out in the country is where you ought to be the air is better the trees and nice are that. That's a proper place to bring up children

and the roads are a way to open up that desirable place to live in a way of escaping from the city. And if you build a road through the middle of the city and knock down a lot of housing that slum clearance you're doing those people a favor by getting them out of that terrible place. And that's really a very progressive program. I'm not saying this to make fun of the concept is what people seriously believed in the 50s and that's in all good faith they were in full and they ripped down a lot of Boston on that basis. And when people who lived in those houses screamed and said you're taking my house it was generally well I just don't know any better and once they're out of that terrible place then they'll they'll know and they'll thank us that that we got them out of there. The change in perception that took place from the mid 50s to 72 73 when the fundamental decisions were made to turn the thing around in Boston were really changes not interest with patient plan but in the view of the

city with large numbers of people saying one of the city's a great place to live. This is this is my neighborhood it's a very positive place. I want to live here in the very large number of suburbanites who are saying gee we like it out here and we came out here because we want to see some green. We don't want to see all the green disappear with more and more models and more and more housing and if there are some people who still want to live in the city for God's sake let him stay that is enough. You know there's not that much room out here. And besides we're getting tired of getting caught in the traffic jams and another road to get more cars into the same center isn't going to solve our problem as well as a mass transit system so that the at least a reasonable number of suburbanites started to see their interest very differently and see more road construction is not being in their interest because it was going to lessen the amount of green they enjoyed and lessen their ability to get to the city and a large number of urban people had shifted their attitude and said whenever there's a damn good place to live you're not going to get me out of here. And

that really was the change that had taken place much more than a transportation change so that. In fact I had one more piece to it we had the problem that people are talking about most and most is a dangerous word. The problem that a lot of people are talking about and getting worried about in the Boston area now is that the urban areas getting too successful that too many people want to move back into the city is a new word called gentrification. That refers to wealthy people are people who aren't poor at least rediscovering the values of the center city moving in rehabilitating the housing driving up the values and pushing out poor people who've lived in in the urban neighborhoods traditionally one of the two or three generations simply not able to keep up with the prices. And the whole thing sort of turning on its ear. So in terms of knowing nothing about Vermont except that I like it here very

much. My wife and I take the kids up here on Columbus Day to look at the leaves. I wouldn't miss it at least once a year. But I think one thing that's that can be learned from the Boston situation is the transportation planning is really about broad values. How you view your city and specifically what happened in Boston was turning the process inside out from a process which had looked at the city from the outside saying how do we get roads into it. To a process that says when I'm at the City is good. Let's fix it up and then how do we strengthen the city that we've got. And how do we reach out and add to it. And that change in perception has resulted in a totally changed approach to transportation planning. That I think may say something to the local situation in terms of what kind of in you other people have to answer those questions what kind of a city do you want.

What kind of a city do you want to become. And think about that first and then ask what kind of a transportation system will contribute to that kind of city. So thanks. Thank you very much. OK we've heard from two optimistic panel with who believe that yes the process can change. Now let's hear from our sociologist. Thank you. You mean something by that I know we look into everything and I'm going to end that went to one of the greatest disservices that science has inadvertently brought to the modern world I'm afraid is the belief that highly trained scientific specialists can and should be given special privileges in making technical excuse me and making non-technical decisions in large part this is this has been one of the major problems with transportation planning over the past several decades. Often trained in urban planning transportation planners have to often believe their own propaganda

that their work is a form of value free empiricism. But as Mr. Silva has very effectively pointed out to us personal and social values are an integral part of the planning process. Persons and groups and different positions of society may view transportation issues and diverse and conflicting ways. What the commuter views as a highly desirable form of change may be seen as disastrous from the standpoint of a local resident. All too often such planning decisions have been made by some combination of politicians. Traffic and in traffic engineers who ultimately defined both the goals and the means to those goals. Yet the citizen in a democratic society should have as much to contribute to the to the planning of his or her community as the so-called experts. While the scientifically trained planner has acknowledged expertise in the mechanics of road construction and traffic flow the individual citizen has it in a democratic state has a right and indeed an

obligation to decide such issues as such importance to the life of the community as a transportation of it. Indeed this is the strength of a democracy. Much to the credit of America's evolving social conscience the 1980s as was already indicated in 1970s have witnessed an acute increase in interest in citizen participation in many forms of community planning. Much of the impetus for these changes came from the growing self-awareness of minorities that actions were often taken in the name of the common good. Exacted a heavy price within their ethnic community. A new highway of benefit mainly mainly to white suburbanites was oftentimes built on the backs of those least able to use them and least capable of defending themselves. These include of course the disenfranchised of color old age and low income. The citizens who wish to participate in transportation planning had many points on their side. First such involvement was an essential part of the Democratic

ideology. Second they knew the needs of the neighborhood better than anyone else. Finally it became increasingly acknowledged that community planning involved value laden positions outside the legitimate scope of urban planners combining these factors with fairly heavy handed encourage went from Washington citizen involvement in transportation planning became common in many states as we've heard tonight. The sociologist however has critically examine the facts of community participation in such planning efforts and has found some very disconcerting patterns. Who are the citizens who attend the public hearings or otherwise themselves or involve themselves in the transportation planning process. The so-called broad based participation that we frequently read about. However Fred tonight has has acknowledged very accurately that it is not as broad based as we always think. More typically consists of local elites who make dubious claims about representing the masses. These active citizens are unlike the typical community residents in that they usually have higher levels of

incomes by quite a bit higher levels of education and are in occupations that often stand to benefit if only indirectly by virtue of their participation. For example merchants whose businesses are threatened by politicians looking for a platform and I must include myself even college professors conducting research or seeking to satisfy the person with the occupational requirements for community participation. These are the so-called average citizens we're told but we realize that they are not very average at all. The These citizens also have or at least they frequently possess more leisure time for such involvement they have greater organizational skills very often they have greater self-confidence in public speaking and a basic knowledge of the very special esoteric language of community organization workers. Citizens who are truly representative of the community do not possess these advantages and in fact have many structural barriers to their actual participation. Thus the

public hearings and public forums frequently help to foster citizen participation are often divided into at least three groups. One professional politician and planner. To the local elites that I've just spoken of. And finally and least I'm afraid the occasional person from the street diverse unimaginative public relations ploys to get the masses involved have seldom succeeded and entice even 5 percent of the community to actually participate. Perhaps the so-called Iron Law of oligarchies is correct in that the masses will always inevitably fail to participate. Whatever the reasons the results are clear. Citizen participation in community and transportation planning is usually highly selective and a far cry from the ideals of democratic participation in 1074 lecture sponsored by the Connecticut Humanities Council sociologist Thomas Joyce argued that America's transportation system will inevitably create social problems to the extent that it constitutes a power and a social

force that is not recognized in society and therefore not controlled. Joyce suggested that there are four distinct perspectives that characterize transport the transportation system there the user the vendor the designers and finally the social system itself. Joyce contends that this first group the user has wants for efficient safe and reliable mobility often colored by fantasy and status seeking as we spoke about last week. These wants are typically a direct reflection of what the corporations of America advertise and make available. The second perspective is that a vendors or providers of both vehicles and providers of roads. In the case of car manufacturers He points out that profit is their guiding light and that they are under constant pressure to abandon activities that are not lucrative. They also appear to be reasonably successful at influencing government policy to their advantage. Joyce warns us that there is no inevitable force that assures that vendors will initiate and

sustain those policies that are in the best interest of either the users or the overall social system. The perspective of the designer. The third group is described by sociologist Joyce as a frustrated one. For example the engineer is typically subservient to political marketing and management decisions. Often times these profit and political considerations have superceded the public's need for effective efficient and safe transportation. The fourth and final perspectives out of the social system is a very abstract perspective that involves such issues as the common good. Social cohesion neighborhood solidarity the need for economic growth the need for individual mobility the need for of Public Safety the loss of irreplaceable natural resources the size and location of communities and so forth. These are the profound questions of a perspective that looks at the transportation system as one indivisible

whole and asks how it affects society how it affects culture and how it affects the human condition each of these four perspectives. I believe Joyce is correct in asserting are equally legitimate. Equally important and equally relevant to making decisions about transportation planning. Yet if any one perspective is left out or if any one perspective is allowed to dominate transportation thinking then the system will develop out of balance and serious problems will eventually occur. How do we create a balance of perspectives in the decision making process regarding transportation. This is a truly demanding task nationally these decisions are dominated by a complex process of lobbying pressures and politicians of course support the status quo and encourage the dominance of any perspective that is organized and powerful. Fortunately other options are available at our local level because of the problems of participation that we've already discussed. Perhaps the solution is to require

that each of these four perspectives be represented by a single articulate articulate and competent advocate. The Canadian urban planner William Michelson calls this advocacy planning similar to the courtroom analogy. The state could require perhaps should require that each transportation plan under consideration be ensured a series of professionally trained proponents and opponents similar to the prosecuting and defending attorneys of a court of law. Each side would prepare proposals reflecting exclusively the opinions and desires of their one perspective and argue it publicly before a panel of judges before a panel of citizens I don't know. Users would be granted one advocate as would the designers. As with the vendors and as with those concerned with the overall social system. Thus a greater variety of options and alternatives could be considered without any side having the exclusive advantages that are presently an inherent part of transportation planning.

While I do not think that these that this ingestion is a bad one. The point that I wish to emphasize is simply this. There exists a diversity of legitimate perspectives that should be taken into account in transportation planning ignoring any one of them can create serious social problems for the future. OK who as the comments are reactions to suggestions grievances whatever you like to start with you. I first I want to say how pleased I am that you did get a diversity of opinions and background on the panel. I think I think it's I think the last comments by Vince works especially pertinent to the comments that I'd like to make. There is no question in my mind that transportation planning is. Or are what the Department of Highways does and the Vermont

Department of Transportation changed only its its name from the Department of Highways to the Department of Transportation all of its technical people have remained the same. And as you don't look to the army to promote peace you don't look to the Department of Highways to do anything but build highways. And I think both of the last peak the last two speakers urged pressing the point that it's it isn't the highways that need planning. It is communities that need planning. And if as a result of planning for communities and to meet communities mean people needs as a result of planning for communities. If by the way you need highways then you should call on Department of Highways. Yet our system is presently designed so that the United States has a Department of Transportation. I don't know that the United States has a Department of Community Planning. I don't understand that kind of priority and this is very right that that it is impossible for

for a citizen. Two ballots to compete with the huge ponderous organization of full time professionals in highway planning. It's absolute and I don't know why. Although there are many of the by the Department of Transportation that they want citizen participation. Why do they insist they're there then to make participation by the citizens so difficult. Made it certainly made easy with billions of dollars that the barrel of Transportation had to take to participate in highway planning. On the other hand why do they insist on making it difficult for the citizens. We don't have to look at the United States to see this example we can look at the City of Britain or the other county it shouldn't carry. OK so the question would be then how could we make just easily ample ample. Well let me interrupt you there because I'm sure with this you people you're going to get a chance to speak again.

Maybe we could stop right there and see if everybody here shares this frustration or whether someone at this point already has 8. Maybe you're going to make specific suggestions as you know how into you're going to. OK let's see if anybody else has a specific idea as to how citizens could we dress the imbalance of power if you will. And if no one else has something then we'll go back to this gentleman but let's see if someone else has something first. Go ahead. One of the comments that I would make would be given the situation as a specific example in Connecticut 1962 to 1972 and then presumably after then the action plan was put into effect because one of the things that surprised me was your statement was that the people found out by way of the Grapevine. And I'm wondering quite frankly if today the people are really going to find out any other way I'm very skeptical from anything that I've ever seen and heard about

highway or so-called transportation departments that they really do want to hear from the people that they number one make the process make excessive make themselves accessible. And number two that they really take citizens opinions seriously. What I'm more or less convinced of right now is that it takes something like Governor Sargent in Massachusetts to make such a forceful decision and in a way the people elected governor sergeant felt perhaps through that they had their way but I think I'm thinking it takes a real leader and a public official. Fine so we have several problems here how do citizens get information if they know what's going on and how do citizens in turn communicate to those in power are they listened to are they not listened to. How could they be more effective in their communication. Go ahead please comment on that last comment.

To illustrate again in one county the south and connector had according to the rules put up one Department of Transportation had to have a public hearing. It did have a public hearing. It was advertised in a paper with a small ad in one of the pages in the free press. It met the legal requirements and the attendance was very light. Most people that were there that were not directly involved sought by happenstance besides happenstance that they happen to have happen to be interested so they came. Now comes the referendum. And the power structure the Department of Transportation your car whatever had TV spots radio spots pamphlets they distributed you know now and then and then I hear tell that the establishment wants citizen participation. Why not then could they not use the same mechanism to get the participation out that they got

for them to get the vote out. And the sad part of it is the hearing in theory brings out opinions while the propaganda put out before the vote. Had Iranian information what are palace like to respond. That's going to be OK. Thank you and I was just just a couple of points I think. First of all. I think Arman kind of answered his his own question and basically that would be my answer. Or this lady over here was talking about when the transportation planning process advertises or order sets up the framework for a public information meeting. I think they have a tendency to make it all make the awareness by virtue of whatever the mandated regulations are. And I think it's Arman is as alluded to that the the notice for a

public meeting on a particular project basically appears in the legal notice in the legal section of a newspaper. Well you know how many people search the legal notices every day to find out what meetings there are there are so many meanings that people are not interested in or don't pertain to them that it is almost nonexistent method of making people aware of public meetings. I certainly think that again is Armin has pointed out that. When a public information meeting is being set up on a particular project that there should be widespread publication and and and widespread advertisement about the meeting. In in all of the media to make everybody aware of the fact that this meeting is going to be held what a topic of discussion they're going to be. If there has been any material prepared in

advance by whoever whether it is the planning agency or if it's local interest groups or what have you that that information be available to whoever wants to review that information and it should be made known and made easily accessible so that the general public or public officials or Again whoever it may be that has an interest has an opportunity to get to this information and review it so that they can. I have some basis to make comment at a public hearing or a public information meeting. I think the other problem that I find with a public information meeting is the structure or the format of the meeting. I think it's so structured that it requires people to for the most part get up before microphone identify themselves their name their address and what have you in order to make a comment.

And I think this is something that just eliminates a large segment of people from either attending or even making comment once they get there because they feel so self-conscious or will for whatever reason. I think we have to start looking at developing a format for public input that is not anywhere near restructured as the procedures which we're using today. That was transportation engineer Bruce Houghton. He spoke at a public forum recorded at St. Paul's Cathedral in Burlington on May 14th of this year. We also heard the views of Fred Silva. Ex Transportation secretary of Massachusetts and Vincent Bolduc a sociologist from St. Michael's College. But topic was how can professionals and citizens work together. The roles of public officials experts and special interest groups in highway planning. This has been

Vermont Public Radio forums crosscurrents a series of lectures and discussions exploring issues of concern in Vermont. This edition was recorded by Fred Wasser and Randall buyer.