The fundamental purpose and goal of this pilot test was to evaluate and propose enhancements to the TCAPP collaborative planning tool. The project team utilized the tool from December, 2010, through April, 2012, to guide much of the planning activities in the development of a Complete Streets planning process in the City of Grand Rapids, Minnesota. The focus was in assessing the tool’s value in providing guidance to facilitate project partners and local stakeholders to work collaboratively, leading to decisions that would stick. The final planning process would be deemed a success if it was found to be both acceptable to stakeholders and fiscally possible. Although the team has asserted that this test is somewhat unique in that it is not characterized by abundance of controversy or mistrust among the participants (although the test did reveal a little more controversy than initially expected), a pilot test of TCAPP on this project was useful because of the broad and disparate variety of partners and stakeholders involved in the project. In short, the team was confident that the planning process would ultimately result in an agreed upon plan, so it was useful to assess the value of TCAPP to guide the planning process in an environment where most participants have different specific interests, but mostly are inclined to want to work together to achieve a common objective. (Author/publisher)
Abstract