WSDOT is updating the state’s Highway System Plan (HSP). The HSP is the state highway component of the Washington Transportation Plan, which outlines the policies adopted by the Washington State Transportation Commission. The HSP serves as the basis for the six-year highway program and the two-year biennial budget request to the State Legislature. Because the COVID-19 pandemic is limiting in-person communication with the state’s residents, business owners, and public decision makers, WSDOT is looking for non-traditional ways to increase public and community engagement in the plan’s update. The objective of this project is to develop an easily deployed tool that will allow WSDOT to increase its communication with citizens around the state. The tool will allow WSDOT to interact with a variety of communities via a discrete choice survey, which the project will conduct. It will focus on aspects of the HSP such as preservation and maintenance, systems operations and management, the physical condition of the system, and focused capacity expansion, as well as their related budget impacts and effects on system performance, safety, access for diverse users and uses, the road system’s impact on climate change, and availability of natural resources. In updating the HSP, WSDOT is particularly interested in increasing the participation of populations such as communities of color, low-income communities, people with limited English proficiency, and people with disabilities to improve the equity of the resulting plan.
Principal Investigator: Mark E. Hallenbeck, Washington State Transportation Center, UW
Sponsor: WSDOT
WSDOT Technical Monitor: Jeremy Jewkes
WSDOT Project Manager: Jon Peterson
Scheduled completion: December 2021