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SCAG’s Go Human Kit of Parts: Impacts on Street Level Community Resiliency 

Go Human is the active transportation safety and encouragement campaign from the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG), the nation’s largest metropolitan planning organization. Go Human‘s goal is to reduce the number of injuries and fatalities involving people walking and biking and to increase rates of active transportation. Since its inception in 2016, Go Human has expanded the conversation beyond vehicular violence into a suite of traffic safety programs, including:  

• Community Streets Mini-Grants, a funding program for projects that build street level community resiliency and increase traffic safety which just awarded 31 community-driven traffic safety activations. Read more on our blog.  
• Community Safety Ambassadors, a paid training opportunity in partnership with California Walks that consists of educational and engagement strategies to improve safety through virtual interactive workshops.  

• Traffic Safety Peer Exchanges, a series of in-depth virtual sessions convening traffic safety practitioners discussing topics such as equity, funding, and community-centered safety strategies. Register now! 

One of many pivotal Go Human strategies includes engaging priority and historically disinvested communities through the development of its “Kit of Parts,” an engagement tool to temporarily demonstrate potential and planned street design treatments and safety infrastructure. The Kit of Parts (“Kit”), designed by the Kounkuey Design Initiative, includes modular, lightweight, and durable components that can be easily assembled to demonstrate five different street design treatments (protected bike lanes, parklets, crosswalks, pedestrian refuge islands and bulb‐outs).  

Installed on a temporary basis, the Kit of Parts transforms a conventional street into one that prioritizes the safety of people walking, biking, and taking transit. Participants engage with the temporary street treatments, learn about their purpose and impact, enjoy a new public space, and give their thoughts and comments on the improvements through surveys and other feedback tools. Go Human’s temporary safety demonstrations provide a creative avenue for residents who have not traditionally engaged with their local jurisdictions to inform planning decisions. More than just getting projects in the ground, these pop-ups serve essential roles in facilitating community participation and leadership development within planning efforts. 

Additionally, SCAG has developed its Resilient Streets Toolkit. This pandemic response strategy utilizes street space for community resiliency, recovery, and resource delivery that prioritizes impacted and historically disinvested communities and identifies use of the Kit of Parts as a strategic resource. The Kit of Parts was included as a resource and proved instrumental in supporting nonprofits with Resilient Streets efforts. Many of the Kit of Parts items were repurposed to adhere to COVID‐19 public health parameters. To date Go Human has partnered with 20+ civic organizations to use the Kit to address the evolving needs of the region’s communities. 

Often, community-identified safety improvements can take years, if not decades, to address. Go Human collaborates directly with community stakeholders to respond to safety needs in ways that are timelier and focus on community-led strategies. The Kit brings a wide range of active transportation interventions to under‐resourced communities in the short term, allowing residents to enjoy them and understand their benefits without having to wait many years for full implementation. By helping build this constituency for future improvements, these projects build community capacity, strengthen resilience, and advance equity at the local level.  

Since its release in 2019, the Kit has been showcased to tens of thousands of residents at events across Southern California.  Prior to the pandemic, the Kit was deployed over 45 times for a variety of projects, in conjunction with open streets events, Safe Routes to School demonstrations, bicycle-friendly business district programs, safety demonstrations, and conferences. To date, over one-quarter of the 40+ Go Human safety demonstration projects have been funded or permanently installed. 

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Go Human at CicLAvia

Stay tuned on the Go Human social media pages @gohumansocal on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter for upcoming deployments of the Kit of Parts in conjunction with Mini-Grant recipients, Community Ambassadors, SCAG’s Active Transportation Program projects, and more! Subscribe to our newsletter and contact Alina Borja at borja@scag.ca.gov with any questions. 

In more than 30 years working as the Executive Director of the Mid-America Regional Council (MARC), David Warm has consistently been a remarkable leader for the Kansas City metropolitan area, and we are pleased to recognize him as a recipient of this year’s NARC President’s Award. His effectiveness as a community leader has earned him respect and admiration not only in his own community, but among regional planning organizations across the country. For nearly an entire generation, David has been a true ambassador for the principles of regionalism in government and an example for other regional leaders to follow.

This is especially seen in the growth of MARC over the past three decades. Under David’s leadership, the regional council has seen its staff increase from 55 to 166 employees and its budget grow from $8 million to $83 million. He’s used that growth to spearhead countless regional initiatives, from the agency’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, to greater commitment to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, to the development of a thoughtful and innovative long-range transportation plan. Even beyond MARC, David has modelled what regional cooperation should look like through his work advising various non-profit and civic organizations in the Kansas City area.

David’s achievements in the Kansas City region and beyond serve as a model for what effective regional cooperation can look like in the future. We asked him about some of his own accomplishments and what he sees as the future for regionalism in government.

What role has regional cooperation played in your successes at MARC?

I think we have succeeded on many fronts at MARC because we tend to view regional cooperation not as the goal, but a means to a goal. We approach our work by first trying to understand a shared need or opportunity. Regional cooperation often emerges as an important, though not exclusive tool, to help us move forward.

We also understand that regional collaboration can never be built on sacrifice or loss — it must find the intersection among disparate interests where a unified interest can emerge. We try to pay close attention to creating the conditions for cooperation and, as often as not, the actors themselves arrive at solutions that make sense for the community.

What lessons have you learned about encouraging people to cooperate on important projects?

I have found these three things matter the most to facilitate cooperation:

First, leadership matters. We always get farther when we are supporting one or more people or groups — elected officials, professionals, civic voices — who bring energy and vision to an idea and who inspire commitment and action. These are the kinds of leaders who do not use their positional authority but are by nature collaborative peer problem solvers skilled at building broad-based support among diverse interests.

Second, process matters. How we approach an issue often determines our progress. Regional affairs require careful attention to the process by which we address a situation: engaging the right people, framing the issue positively, setting principles, focusing on facts, clarifying the need or opportunity, continual communication and many other strategies that increase the possibility for progress.

Third, what matters the most is trust. Regional councils are not merely in the regional business—we are in the trust-building business. To succeed, we need to create the environment in which diverse actors not only trust us, but also find ways to trust each other to advance an idea. Regional trust is built as is any facet of life, through fostering mutual respect, open communication and addressing the needs of others.

In an era where government at all levels is the target of suspicion and mistrust, collaboration can be a powerful antidote. Working together creates bonds, both professional and personal, and out of those bonds emerge the seeds of trust that can bear fruit in the form of better outcomes for residents and communities.

During your time at MARC, how important has familiarity with the people in your community been in addressing issues?

Familiarity is very helpful. Our organization has formed deep partnerships and credibility that continues to serve us well. But all relationships require continual care, and it is imperative that we constantly stay connected, relevant and valuable to our partners, civic leaders and the community at large.

It is equally imperative that we work with intentionality to form new relationships as actors change, circumstances shift and new opportunities emerge. We need to be especially attentive to building authentic, effective relationships with diverse communities and interests across the region who have historically been left out of many regional conversations, but whose active voices are essential to our future. Engaging these new voices will be critical as regional councils work to address racial inequities, which in most American regions has been aggravated by regional housing, transportation, and educational systems.

What is something you know now that you wish you knew when you first began your career?

I wish I had held a different view of the role and process of planning. For much of my career in local government and at MARC, we followed a process for thinking about the future that strived to express a coherent vision and lay out the steps to achieve that vision. We relied on assumptions about the future that were essentially an extension of trends at the time.

We now have a much clearer understanding of the broader driving forces that will shape the future of our region — including globalization, demographics, technology and climate change. The impact of these is not clear and can be impossible to predict. We are now adjusting our planning to consider new scenarios so we can make choices today to minimize threats and maximize opportunities. As a result, I think we are making more resilient plans and decisions today than we did in the early part of my career.

How has the shape and scope of regional cooperation changed throughout your career?

Regional collaboration is more prevalent and more complex than it has ever been.

When I started my career in city government 40-plus years ago, one of my early assignments was to help create an inter-governmental insurance pool, and one of the major civic efforts I worked on was to build a community center connected to a middle school to share recreational and performance facilities. These were not original ideas but at the time were considered progressive. Yet today, these kinds of joint service agreements are now commonplace across America.

In addition to becoming more prevalent, collaboration has become more complex. Early in my career, collaboration tended to be bilateral or inter-local relationships around a specific issue or outcome, e.g., cities cooperatively forming an insurance pool, or the city and school district building a shared facility.

We now also have countless robust relationships that involve multiple partners and sectors that are aimed at achieving long-term outcomes — everything from joint ventures to technology platforms and service agreements that allow for person-centered, cooperative case management to civic partnerships that drive regional agendas and coordinate public and private resources. Technology, resource constraints, public expectations and competitive forces continue to drive innovation in the models used to advance regional outcomes.

What traits — in both yourself and others — do you think are most important to being an effective community leader?

I think of public leadership not as specific traits, but as the process by which you try to make decisions or approach situations to strive to simultaneously advance three core goals:

1. Be true to yourself — to your values, principles and your authentic character.
2. Honor your relationships — with your organization, your partners, your funders and, above all, your community.
3. Honor your obligations — to your duties, your profession, your associations and, above all, to continually find ways to better serve the public.

How to approach any situation that balances all three goals will change, but in a community context, it usually involves active engagement and communication that enables solutions to emerge that find the confluence between what you believe, who you need to serve and how you can be effective.

What future role do you see for regionalism in government?

Several realities make regional approaches ever more essential: Fiscal pressures in the face of increased public expectations, competitive global pressures that compel communities to build the collective capacity to compete, and practical pressures — from homelessness to environmental protection to workforce development to traffic management — that require multi-faceted regional strategies.

Despite these pressures to collaborate, many factors combine to make regional approaches challenging, including structural fragmentation, social and economic disparities, conflicting values, and the time and patience required to craft thoughtful regional strategies.

Yet, given the overriding pressures to collaborate, local government leaders will be compelled in the coming decade to spend increasing amounts of time, political skills and resources to support collaborative strategies to guide their communities. They will spend as much time looking outside city hall as inside. Basic service delivery will remain important, but the key drivers of local government will be resource leveraging, community positioning, problem solving and strategic leadership — all of which require work in tandem and in sustained, collaborative partnerships with many other institutions.

How has the COVID-19 pandemic impacted the way you view your work?

The COVID-19 pandemic has had two major, opposite impacts.

On the one hand, it has opened our thinking about the ways in which we manage our organizations, deliver services, engage with our partners and communicate with the public. It has demonstrated our value, nimbleness and creativity as an organization as we have retooled virtually everything we do — internally and externally. We have built new partnerships with philanthropy, hospitals, community-based organizations and many others as we have come together to address pressing public health, economic and social issues that have converged over the last two years.

On the other hand, the pandemic has been hard on regional relationships. Interactions via electronic means have been more transactional, and it has been challenging to nurture engagement, especially among new public officials. We have also had to make very difficult decisions on how to manage the public health crisis, and the diversity of views, values and perspectives has tested relationships. At the same time, economic stress and the compelling but difficult issue of racial disparity has made every decision more complex.

As we move forward, I am hopeful that we will be able to use the innovation and openness we advanced during the pandemic to address the deeper issues in front of us as a regional community and, that as we do so, we will foster even stronger, more resilient relationships for the future.

What impact has coordination with like-minded colleagues had on your own leadership abilities?

Perhaps the greatest honor and greatest joy of my career has been to be able to work alongside talented, dedicated public officials, civic leaders and professional peers.

I have worked with and for hundreds of elected leaders over many years, and I continue to be impressed by the caliber of the people who step forward, with no personal benefit, to take on very challenging roles, motivated simply by a goal to advance the quality of their community.

I continue to be inspired by countless civic leaders — from neighborhood advocates to corporate executives — who care deeply about the places they call home.

And I am fueled by the examples of my peers — regional council directors, public administrators and nonprofit managers — whom I consider to be friends, teachers and mentors. I have been deeply privileged to work with so many amazing people who exemplify the very best of public service.

OKI Regional Council of Governments: Winner of this year’s Project Achievement Awards with their Ohio River Recreational Trail Digital Guide

The Ohio-Kentucky-Indiana Regional Council of Governments (OKI) developed the Ohio River Digital Guide, an interactive digital map that is designed to aid boaters, paddlers, anglers, cyclists, and motorists to safely explore the Ohio river communities. The guide provides real-time updates of where commercial vessels are and where the barge “sail line” is in the river. In addition to this, the guide includes links to river community websites so travelers can learn about the wonderful amenities that can be found within the river communities.

David Rutter, Senior Planner at the Ohio-Kentucky-Indiana Regional Council of Governments  explains just how important this river trail guide is to the region at large and his personal experience with this guide:

My first experience of the Ohio River occurred from the backseat of the family car driving across the Brent Spence Bridge in Cincinnati in the early 80s. We were near the end of a multiday family trip from Texas to my parents’ hometown in central Ohio. From my backseat vantage, I looked out at a brown industrial looking riverfront, not really inviting. Views from bridges pretty much sums up the fullness of my experience of the river for the next several decades whether that was in Pittsburgh, Wheeling, Marietta, or Cincinnati. They all looked very similar, lots of concrete, industry, and very little public access. 

It was not until I moved to Cincinnati in 2016 to work for the Ohio-Kentucky-Indiana Regional Council of Governments (OKI) that I finally got close to the river and began to kayak on it. Tentatively at first, always looking out for barges and motorboats. My love of paddling led to my involvement on the Paddlefest planning team. Paddlefest is an annual event held on the first Saturday of August in Cincinnati, where the Ohio river shuts down to motorized traffic and over 2,000 people paddling nine miles from the East side of Cincinnati to the west side through downtown. It is a great way to see the city skyline and the communities on both sides of the river with the added benefit of not having to watch out for those larger vessels. Proceeds from the event help to support Adventure Crew, whose mission is to get city kids out into nature.  

In 2018 my involvement on the Paddlefest planning team also gave me the opportunity to be part of a team of nine people paddling in a 30-foot voyager canoe straight through from Cincinnati to Louisville, 130 miles in 33 hours. The organizers of the trip were from River City Paddle Sports in Louisville who invited people from the Paddlefest team to join them. I learned a great deal from the seasoned “big river” paddlers on the trip such as the benefit of paddling in as straight a line as possible to reduce the distance traveled and with it the number of strokes required. This involved continual crossing from one side of the river to the other on the diagonal between bends. All of us kept our eyes and ears open for barges in case we needed to make a quick dash towards the nearest shore to avoid being river kill. As we paddled through the night our conversation turned to how we could make it easier for others to experience the river like we were doing.  The seed for the digital guide was planted and the Ohio River Recreation Trail began to germinate. 

OKI supported Paddlefest for years and had recently created an online map that participants in Paddlefest could pull up on their phones to see the route, where they were at, and learn more about some of the things around them by clicking on them. As the Ohio River Recreation Trail planning committee began, we knew we wanted something similar but more robust, a guide that would show the user where they were at, access points, points of interest around them, and most importantly where the barges were located. 

Barges, big seemingly slow-moving juggernauts, easily avoidable so long as one knows where they are. That seems like it should be easy given how big they are but they can be amazingly quiet, especially when coming up from behind or if you are around a bend in the river. More than anything else, fear of the barges seemed to keep people from paddling on the Ohio River. One of the most unique aspects of the digital guide is having real time AIS data showing the location and direction of travel for commercial vessels.  

A few months after our initial paddle from Cincinnati to Louisville, I decided to do a solo trip from Portsmouth, OH to Cincinnati after dropping my oldest off at Ohio University. To plan for the trip, I used the Ohio River Guidebook by Jerry M. Hay since the digital guide was still just an idea. It was helpful but bulky and required me to continually guesstimate my approximate location and how far to my next stopping point. It also did not provide much guidance on things to do, places to see, where to eat, or sleep. So, I rarely stopped to explore the small towns I was passing. Meanwhile I was continually hyper alert for any indication of a barge headed in my direction. Every crossing from one side of the river to the other to take the shortest route involved intense paddling to get out of the shipping lane as quickly as possible.  

In June 2020 we released the digital guide. My first trip out on the river was very different. I still watched and listened closely for barges and other motorized traffic but now I could more confidently decide when it was a good time to cross the river. The real time data allowed me to see around the bends of the river and look several miles up and downstream to anticipate when I would need to be extra cautious as a barge approached. It also helped me know what our river towns have to offer, restaurants and shops, hotels, campgrounds, and marinas. It encourages the user to explore further and conversely for our river towns to keep the data for their communities up to date. Local leaders have been quick to see the potential for the guide to bring people to their communities fueling their economies. 

The digital guide has helped make recreation on the Ohio River safer, at least for the 274 miles between Portsmouth, OH and West Point, KY and helps highlight the unique character of each of the towns along the route while emphasizing their connectedness. It is our hope and aspiration to expand it to the full 981 miles of the Ohio River in the near future.    

Written by David Rutter, Senior Planner, OKI Regional Council of Governments

In her over 20 years of regional experience in economic development, historic preservation, and transportation planning in the Lehigh Valley region, Becky Bradley has demonstrated brilliant problem-solving skills and exemplary leadership abilities, and NARC is pleased to recognize her as the recipient of this year’s Walter Scheiber Leadership Award. Prior to her current role as executive director of the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission (LVPC), Becky worked as the Director of Planning, Codes, and Development at the City of Easton, where she helped lead a $500 million revitalization of the community. She brought that experience to LVPC, where, in 2013, she immediately got to work revamping the organization to work more efficiently in the digital age.  

That eye for modernity has also played into Becky’s planning success at LVPC, where she’s managed the success of one of Pennsylvania’s fastest-growing regions while still preserving its historic farmland and natural resources. While there, Becky spearheaded the comprehensive “FutureLV” plan — one of the first programs in the nation to link planning with transportation infrastructure funding — allowing the region to employ its $2.5 billion Long-Range Transportation Plan in its land use recommendations.  

Becky’s achievements in the Lehigh Valley region exemplify the leadership qualities needed to confront future challenges in regional development. To further highlight her tremendous accomplishments, we asked her about her leadership style and the future she sees for regional cooperation.   

1.) What role has regional cooperation played in your successes at LVPC?  

Regional cooperation is exactly what I do every day, it is at the center of everything.  I think I am the proudest of recognizing that having a bi-county comprehensive plan separate from our long-range transportation plan was inefficient, confusing of the community and thwarted policy implementation.  By working with our 37-member bi-county planning commission, the metropolitan planning organization for transportation planning and investment, both Lehigh and Northampton County boards, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation and US Department of Transportation as well as, our many, many publics, non-profit and for-profit partners to create a single plan with a $4.3 billion transportation investment plan has been one of the greatest successes on my career.  Through the new FutureLV: The Regional Plan we now have a balanced policy and funding approach to everything from housing and economy to equity and the environment, while positioning the Lehigh Valley for the massive technological and societal changes that are emerging as part of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.              

2.) What lessons have you learned about encouraging people to cooperate on important projects? 

Actively listening to individual needs, seeking out the voices of people who are under-represented and truly building a bigger decision-making table builds the implementation culture needed for success.  No one plans or implements alone and every citizen, business, transit rider, tractor trailer driver, Uber driver, airline pilot, child, adult…all have a roll.  Our lives and our success are intertwined and to be successful we must recognize, honor and invite everyone to the table.  Beyond that, in equity communities we also need to bring the table to them.  We have long consulted with the titans of industry, so we have no excuse but, to ask our underrepresented population, from Moms and Dads to the elderly and the poor to the racially and culturally-under recognized to be a part in our region’s future.  It is everyone’s after all.        

3.) During your time at LVPC, how important has familiarity with the people in your community been in addressing issues?  

It is everything and as the population, economy, transportation systems, housing, educational institutions, governance structured, etc. change so does the familiarity.  You must be a very astute observer of people and of place.  A region’s inherent dynamisms and the compound-complex nature of regional work must be a healthy obsession to be successful.      

4.) What is something you know now that you wish you knew when you first began your career? 

That regional work was a viable career option.  Not once in my K-12 education or in college was regional work ever discussed.  It wasn’t until I pursued a graduate education in City and Regional Planning that I understood the power and logic of working at the metropolitan level.  The regional scale is where most people live their lived and where companies and even small businesses operate.  I am glad I found regional work and with every opportunity to speak to children and young adults I speak about how communities really work, at the metro-scale.      

5.) How has the shape and scope of regional cooperation changed throughout your career?  

The need for a regional mindset is the only way to remain viable as a community in a global economy.  The only way to distribute vaccines or carry people and goods from destination to destination is regional in most cases.  Ten and 20 years ago the mindset was still local or hyper local.  Now everyone knows regional cooperation is needed to remain relevant and to thrive.  Regional cooperation has evolved with society itself and is only rising more quickly now.          

6.) What traits — in both yourself and others — do you think are most important to being an effective community leader? 

The ability to zoom in and out on any given issue by seeing the detail and bringing in many voices to solve problems.  It is both an art and a science.  Effective community leaders see how the past, relates to the present and the future, brings them into a logical, achievable path to move a community forward.  It is the ability to see inter-relationships, communicate them and work all angles of the issues simultaneously.  Effective regional leaders are adept at this and love a good challenge.  Leadership is always intentional, steady, open-minded and willing to evolve.                 

7.) What future role do you see for regionalism in government?  

As local government and even county governments struggle to implement programs the need for support and leadership will only grow.  Especially, technological advancements begin to require strong regional coordination between federal, state and local governments, the private and non-profit sectors.  Electric vehicle charging networks and small cellular technology systems are two perfect examples of this.  The average person does not know what township or even county they are in, they just know they need to get their kids to school or their delivery to the company that will turn it into a finished product.  They know they need to communicate with their husband or their coworker or their client along the way.  The cell service or connectivity better be there in order from them to be successful in whatever tasks they need to do, wherever they need to do them.  It is the nature of the connected, on-demand economy.  It is society now and into the future.  Regional agencies coordinate systems and networks at the scale that is most relevant to our day-to-day lives.  We have a strong future in supporting, coordinating and convening communities as a result.        

8.) How has the COVID-19 pandemic impacted the way you view your work?  

The COVID-19 Pandemic showed us all systemic vulnerabilities, especially inequities, in decision-making, policies, investments, educational systems, work-life balance, you name it.  In many ways it was a great upheaval and one that I know has fundamentally changed, for the better, how I view community and the need to provide access to opportunity for everyone.  I see this new normal as one of the most exciting and remarkable opportunities to become better people and places.  We have always, as regional councils been able to do the work that others could not, at the scale people needed, but, now more than ever I believe we have a moral obligation to support our communities as they navigate a great unknown.  We can help unravel the uncertainty, provide guidance and support in new ways and make sure that everyone is included.  Our place in this time could not be more important and that obligation is really energizing.          

9.) What impact has coordination with like-minded colleagues had on your own leadership abilities?  

I learn so much from people who work in the regional space.  It is necessary to successful leadership to have string collegial relationships.  I often find that the space where like-minded people come together is where the most exciting and successful problem-solving happens.  We work across regions on transportation system coordination all the time, entering a four-state, eight Metropolitan Planning Organization partnership has allowed us to build trust and work towards common solutions.  Five years ago, the New Jersey Department of Transportation and the North Jersey Transportation Planning Authority would not have known who to contact in Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania when Interstate-80 improvements were being planned.  Now we talk, we coordinate, and we partner regularly.  There’s trust and integrity, and our transportation system functions better because of it.  I am a better leader because of the connection which lead to the commitment to coordinate and collaborate.  It is a win-win. 

Pandemic Accelerates Impacts of Online Shopping in Northwest Indiana 

The award-winning NIRPC report finds the proliferation of e-commerce opens new opportunities for the Northwest Indiana region, even as the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated online shopping trends. 

Begun prior to the onset of COVID-19, the Northwestern Indiana Regional Planning Commission (NIRPC) had already begun to look at the implications of e-commerce trends, given the region’s position on the southern shore of Lake Michigan in the greater Chicago metropolitan area. Little did NIRPC’s staff know at the time how relevant their work would become with the onslaught of the pandemic in the midst of the project, accelerating online shopping trends and the proliferation of deliveries. NIRPC staff quickly pivoted to include current COVID-era data and tailored the report to the reality that these super-charged trends in e-commerce would not be dissipating when the pandemic subsided. 

NIRPC’s report, “E-commerce in Northwest Indiana,” examines changing trends in the region accentuated by these new economic and travel patterns made evident during the coronavirus pandemic. Consumer trends have emerged, allowing planners to forecast land use and economic development needs.  

Slumps in brick-and-mortar retail, increases in freight traffic, and new economic opportunities are just part of data analyzed by NIRPC staff. Among the report’s findings and recommendations, NIRPC planners found a 12% decline in shopping trips in Northwest Indiana between 2008 and 2018, the closure of nearly 28% of consumer electronics stores, and growth of nearly 40% in urban freight delivery. City streets and highway traffic are particularly impacted. Transportation and warehousing make up 17.6% of the economy in Northwest Indiana – a higher percentage than Indianapolis – with warehousing and storage employment increasing 50% in just two years. After analyzing the data, planners identified areas in the Northwest Indiana region that were best suited for development for e-commerce-related business activity, based on proximity to municipalities, major highways, and other factors.  

The report offers recommendations for the region’s municipalities and businesses to allocate resources, plan land use and zoning for changing economic needs, anticipate the development of distribution facilities, and incorporate best practices to adjust to increased last-mile delivery and freight traffic.  It also offers recommendations for businesses planning to develop in Northwest Indiana as well as for existing businesses adjusting to a post-pandemic economy.   

These practical strategies include recommendations in the creation of loading zones to mitigate issues like double-parking that impedes the flow of traffic, maintaining delivery trucks safety in residential areas, and shifting toward Automated Vehicle (AV) trucks to relieve congestion.  Land use and retail recommendations suggest rezoning and rethinking for adaptive reuse, repurposing large vacant retail buildings, sensibly locating warehouses and distribution centers, incentivizing smart buildings, considering experimental retail, and redesigning large surface parking of vacant retail.  Further, the study points to next steps to develop sub-area plans that address transportation improvements and accessibility; establish redevelopment/reuse plans on the local level to provide the best possible solutions to repurpose vacant major retail; develop a regional real estate market outlook for warehouses, fulfilment centers, and logistics; and work with intermodal facilities and freight carriers to identify locations with high levels of freight movement to alleviate freight-related congestion. 

The various analyses NIRPC developed are now being made available to be adapted to other regional and local planning efforts as a means of improving planning capabilities. The report used a travel demand modeling cluster analysis that shows the congestion impacts on the transportation network of a potential newly constructed warehouse or distribution center employing 1,000 people, with clusters varying depending on which geographic site is chosen. The traffic model was based on traffic, population, employment, and land-use data to ensure that e-commerce-related facilities are suitable to other land uses in spatial relation to schools, residential areas, transportation hubs, and other uses.  

While brick-and-mortar stores are not going away – and rumors of a “retail apocalypse,” by most accounts, have been greatly exaggerated – the rapid growth of online shopping has created shifts in the way the region’s residents live, and shopping patterns will continue to change. The report acknowledges this has had a significant impact on the region’s retail sector and will have long-term implications for the way the region uses its land and highways. The pandemic has only accelerated what was already a growing trend in Northwest Indiana, and municipalities and counties within the region can use the insights from the report to make critical decisions for their communities, considering the best strategies for economic growth and quality-of-life. 

The report was approved by the NIRPC commission on November 19, 2020, and was primarily authored by NIRPC staff members Eman Ibrahim, Peter Kimball, Kevin Polette, and Scott Weber.  

NIRPC is the Metropolitan Planning Organization and Council of Governments for Lake, Porter, and LaPorte Counties in Northwest Indiana. Working collaboratively across the region, NIRPC coordinates regional comprehensive planning and programming for transportation, economic development, and environmental policy. 

Read the full report, “E-commerce in Northwest Indiana”:  https://www.nirpc.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/E-Commerce-in-NWI.pdf  

Written by Tyson Warner, Executive Director of Northwestern Indiana Regional Planning Commission   

For his tremendous leadership abilities and continued success working on transportation projects in the Miami-Dade area, NARC is pleased to recognize the Honorable Oliver G. Gilbert III as the recipient of the 2021 Tom Bradley Leadership Award. Chairman Gilbert has served the Miami-Dade area in a number of capacities, including as the Vice Chairman of the Board of County Commissioners and the Chair for the Miami-Dade Transportation Planning Organization (TPO), the Southeast Florida Transportation Council (SEFTC), and Vice Chair of the South Florida Regional Planning Councill. During his time at the Miami-Dade TPO, Chairman Gilbert oversaw the passage of 50 transportation planning-related resolutions during 2020 — resolutions that advanced critical projects and promoted access to multimodal transportation for residents and visitors.  

 Chairman Gilbert has been a champion of regional cooperation throughout his time working in the Miami-Dade area. Under his leadership, the SEFTC adopted the 2045 Regional Transportation Plan (RTP), a collaboration between Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach Counties that aims to provide resilient and equitable transport across southeastern Florida. This RTP will help proactively address the transportation needs of a growing region and further integrate the industries that allow local communities to thrive. To meet the crisis of the pandemic, Chairman Gilbert also oversaw the approval of a study investigating telecommuting as a means of reducing congestion and improving mobility within Miami-Dade County. The study resulted in the creation of a pilot program that aims to maximize telecommuting opportunities and recommend policies for implementation.  

To further highlight the tremendous work done throughout the Miami-Dade region, we asked Chairman Gilbert about his leadership style and the role he sees for regionalism in government — both today and in the future.   

1.) What role has regional cooperation played in your successes with the Miami-Dade TPO? 

As the second-term Chairman for both the Miami-Dade TPO Governing Board, as well as the Southeast Florida Transportation Council (SEFTC), regional cooperation has been key to the success of the Miami-Dade Strategic Miami Area Rapid Transit (SMART) Plan/SMART Region. We have created SEFTC as a  forum where we engage to address regional issues and implement policy in a collaborative manner with agencies across southeast Florida.  The SEFTC is comprised of the membership from the Miami-Dade TPO, Broward Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO), and Palm Beach Transportation Planning Agency (TPA), all within the U.S. Census designated Miami Urbanized area.  

Our region is currently collaborating on strategies for mass transit that will enable us to sustain growth and address issues of sea-level rise and housing. The goal is for long-term sustainability in the southeast Florida region, which is a key component to position Florida as a major global competitor.  

2.) What lessons have you learned about encouraging people to cooperate on important projects? 

I have learned that the public is a key partner for our regional projects to be successful. Through the development and adoption of our 2045 Regional Transportation Plan, we have ensured community engagement and strong stakeholder partnerships. The 2045 Regional Transportation Plan created one regional voice in support of a resilient and equitable transportation for the region’s residents, businesses, visitors, and economic growth. This plan identifies the most significant transportation investments needed for future growth and demand throughout the southeast Florida region. 

3.) During your time at the Miami-Dade TPO, how important has familiarity with the people in your community been in addressing issues?  

Through the transportation planning process, we are constantly engaging the public and community stakeholders, which has been key in gaining consensus to advance the region’s transportation priorities. Familiarity with the core needs of our community regarding transportation, workforce housing, economic development, education, and special needs has helped us understand the diverse views and perspectives, which in turn forms the basis of a successful planning and decision-making process.  

4.) What is something you know now that you wish you knew when you first began your career?  

I wish I knew that the box is imaginary. We hear the phrase “think outside the box”. In most instances, the box is a social norm that we created, that we use to limit our ability to change. We are limited by the laws of physics, everything else is changeable.  

5.) How has the shape and scope of regional cooperation changed throughout your career?  

Regional cooperation has evolved throughout my career from basic agreements to regional consensus and collaboration between counties and governmental agencies. Today, we function as a unified region with strong collaborative partnerships.  

6.) What traits — in both yourself and others — do you think are most important to being an effective community leader? 

I believe creativity and resilience are important traits that allow me, and others, to think outside the box to effect change and bring innovation to our region. As a community leader and Chair of the TPO Governing Board, collaboration is a key element to build a common vision and advance our transportation priorities. We always embrace different and diverse perspectives on our board, which opens us up to new possibilities and allows us to advance our priorities and work with the community. It has been critical to move forward with our Strategic Miami Area Rapid Transit Plan (SMART) which has enabled to directly address the region’s mobility needs for today and the future.  

7.) What future role do you see for regionalism in government?   

Regional collaboration is important to address complex regional issues that affect millions of citizens, including transportation and mobility, safety, and economic development. There is a necessity to promote strategies that will lead to efficient, effective, and consistent regional collaboration. Given our region’s expected growth, we continued to proactively explore partnerships in transportation funding as well as working across boundaries. Through our coordinated long-range planning efforts, we have made great strides in identifying policies, transportation facilities, and services that will strengthen our region and the competitiveness of our nation on the global level.  

8.) How has the COVID-19 pandemic impacted the way you view your work?  

In March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic reshaped daily life, making significant changes in how people operated. While the pandemic presented a range of challenges, it also presented opportunities to showcase resilience. The Miami-Dade TPO Governing Board is aware that we need to be at the forefront of how we address traffic and congestion in our region, and how we respond to any crisis that come our way. Telecommuting is one example of that resilience, reflected in a growing trend in many industries, to comply with social distancing guidelines.  

In mid-summer 2020, the TPO Governing Board approved a study focusing on the concept of telecommuting as part of a long-term overall strategy to reduce congestion and improve mobility in Miami-Dade County. We worked collaboratively with our partners to complete the most comprehensive study to date regarding telecommuting to understand trends and the possibility of telecommuting as a traffic mitigation strategy to “flatten the congestion curve” post-COVID-19.  

A significant outcome of the study is the advancement of a series of policy actions, including a Pilot Telecommuting Program. We have partnered with the South Florida Commuter Services to implement the program. 

9.) What impact has coordination with like-minded colleagues had on your own leadership abilities?  

Collaboration with our partners at the national, state, regional, and local levels has afforded us the opportunity to adapt to critical changes. During COVID-19, our priority was to continue providing vital, safe, seamless, and reliable travel across modes within our southeast Florida jurisdictions. In these unparalleled times we must have a sense of urgency to transition our future to be more economically and environmentally resilient. We will be successful if we can achieve this together. 

With each new year comes the excitement of hope and promise, but for many of us, last year proved to be one of the most challenging times in our lives.  By March 2020, the world was essentially locked down because of the paralyzing effects of COVID-19. However, nothing could have prepared many of us for the events that happened on May 25 with the murder of a young Black man in Minneapolis named George Floyd.  

Leading up to the death of George Floyd were the killings of Breonna Taylor at the hands of law enforcement and Ahmaud Arbery by vigilantes. For many of us in the Black community, these deaths had become far too common and too many to keep count of, but something changed on the day George Floyd was killed. In the hours following his death, a video captured by a 17-year-old girl chronicling the last hours of Mr. Floyd’s life ignited a social and racial justice movement that would transform not only America but would inspire protests across the world in response, demanding an end to the killings of Black people. 

For me and others, seeing Derek Chauvin — a white Minneapolis police officer who was sworn to project and serve — kneel on a black man’s neck for nine minutes and forty-six seconds, with his hand in his pocket and showing no emotion while Mr. Floyd begged for the last moments of his life, broke my heart and angered my soul. It displayed the inhumane treatment many people in my community face at the hands of law enforcement. The video of Mr. Floyd’s murder, along with the deaths of Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and countless others, along with the disparities exposed by COVID-19 were just too much for many of us to bear. By the summer of 2020, protests about the killings of Black people had reached a scale not seen since 1968 after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  

One July afternoon, two friends, Doug Hooker of the Atlanta Regional Council and William Murdock of the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Council, were sharing their observations and feelings about the civil unrest that was occurring across the nation and the world. They shared their concerns about the lack of proactive leadership in their regions in addressing the issues at hand. The two gentlemen resolved to continue the conversation and wondered if their colleagues across the region shared similar concerns. They began conversations with other leaders across the nation to gauge their level of interest in discussing racial injustice. So, what began as a conversation between two friends, evolved into a six-week conversation series on race and equity. 

To help facilitate this journey, Doug and William enlisted the help of John Hammond from ARC and myself. During our first session, we set ground rules and expectations. To participate in the full conversation series, everyone needed to commit to attending the first session. In thinking about the structure, we wanted to create a safe space for participants, one free from judgment, where individuals were empowered to be their authentic selves. Guiding principles were established to help facilitate the conversation.   

We began the series by examining race in the context of our personal journeys, leading to how race is manifested in our prospective regions, then how race is threaded throughout the planning profession, and finally, how we can be a catalyst of change in our communities to facilitate racial equity in our regions. The result of the series led to the creation of a resource guide to help continue the conversation about race and equity in our communities. 

Admittedly, when we first embarked on this conversation journey, I was uncertain of what the outcome would be because oftentimes discussions about race are uncomfortable to have, particularly among people who do not share my same experiences. But much to my surprise, there was an eagerness among leaders across the nation to discuss race, inclusion, and equity. It was so encouraging to hear leaders from all races, backgrounds, and ethnicities share their personal stories about race and to be transparent in discussing the history of their own community’s impact on today’s inequities. Even more encouraging was a willingness to share best practices and potential solutions for change.  

Since the launch of this series, we’ve been able to continue the conversation through the newly formed Diversity, Equity and Inclusion work group. Through this effort, NARC was instrumental in bringing DE&I officers from various regional councils and MPO’s across the country to discuss issues of race and equity in their regions.  

We know that in order to heal as a nation and right the wrongs of our ugly past, it will be critical for us to continue these conversations to inspire change that is needed to plan for a more equitable future for everyone.  

Blog Submission:
This blog post was written and submitted by Níel Jurist, Director of Communications & Engagement at the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission on behalf of MORPC and ARC.