Until next year

Until next year

Naomi Stein TRB
Until next year
Today is my last day at the conference and while it wasn't so jam-packed as the others, it might have been my favorite.

This morning I and a client from the MPO in Colorado Springs (PPACG), Craig Casper, presented our poster on the sensitivity of project rankings to underlying land use and growth assumption.

While standing in front of a poster for 2 hours has the potential to be a little dull, this time around I actually benefited from a remarkable window into the MPO planning world. Not only did I get to learn more about the multicriteria ranking process used by PPACG (to which our TREDIS analysis provided just one input), I also got to watch members from agencies across the country share and discuss best practices for planning and project evaluation.

 

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MPOs, like many public sector agencies, grapple with conflicting demands from many different constituents and oversight entities. They also struggle, like the rest of us, with the reality of uncertain future conditions and the limitations of technical forecasting methods. But rather than throw our hands up in the air, we work ever so incrementally towards better information--from both models and public input processes--and ultimately towards better and more transparent decisions.

Not such a bad thought to leave with.

Until next year!

Tags: #TRBAM