In 1998, Congress passed the Transportation Equity Act for the 21 st Century or TEA-21. For the first time, this legislation requires state departments of transportation (DOTs) and metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) to incorporate safety and security as priority factors in their respective transportation planning processes and activities. Prior to TEA-21, safety was sometimes a prominent factor in project development and design, but this legislation calls for safety consciousness in a more comprehensive, systemwide, multimodal context. It implies collaboration with the other safety communities, transit operators, local jurisdictions and others. The Washington meeting identified several action steps for promoting safety conscious planning (SCP), and an informal ad hoc working group was formed to provide guidance and track progress. One of the recommended initiatives was to encourage a series of forums bringing representatives of the various interests together to discuss strategies for sharing resources and working collaboratively. The Working Group intended for each forum to be tailored to the needs of the individual jurisdictions. This is accomplished through a pre-forum planning meeting with the forum's leaders. The Mid-America Regional Council is one of 12 transportation planning agencies to commit resources and provide leadership in safety conscious planning by hosting a partnership forum. A planning meeting took place in July 2002. The purpose was to articulate the purpose and objectives for the forum, outline an agenda, develop a participant list and address the logistical and process issues for conducting the event. The planning group articulated the following objectives for the Forum: (1) Improve the transportation planning process from a safety perspective; (2) Educate the constituent agencies and organizations to elevate their understanding of safety issues; (3) Gain momentum on continuing projects, e.g. the Smart Moves transit project, Kansas City Scout (the region's freeway management system) and Operation Green Light, the region's arterials traffic signal coordination project; (4) Increase knowledge of data systems and access to quality data and information; (5) Understand and address the problems associated with heightened awareness of homeland security issues; (6) Identify and clarify the connection between operations and safety, especially as it relates to proactive and reactive planning strategies; and (7) Address a series of questions: (a) What is the state-of-the-art in transportation safety planning? (b) What is our vision and what do we need to manage as we move forward? (c) What is working now and what needs improvement? (d) In what areas do system management and safety overlap? (e) How do we make it happen and what should our action plan contain? (Author/publisher)
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