Originally published in the April 2024 issue (v.46) of Streetsmart News

In the last of my dissertation-related newsletters, I want to point out the two types of learning and change that occurred within the planning process among my case cities. I'll also discuss the value of a public health frame and partnerships.

First, one type of learning and change that occurred within these transportation plans was simply including indicators; with the exception of Seattle, which had been using indicators for years, indicators were new to these transportation plans. While Memphis had been using indicators in other city efforts, this was the first time they had been introduced into the comprehensive plan. The drive to include indicators came from mayors (Denver, Memphis) and departmental or plan leadership (Boston, Indianapolis). Accountability was also a key value among city staff and advocates in all cases. In many case cities, the motive for this policy shift was to address inequitable funding and implementation of projects.

The major policy learning and policy change that occurred was about people-centered transportation, specifically with a stronger focus on access, safety, and equity and inclusion. In Denver, “(t)here's definitely been a change in the planning profession . . . in having a people first approach" (Informant 24). In Indianapolis, city staff discovered that the “desire for walkability was almost universal,” which had not previously identified as a community or planning priority (Informant 31). A people-centered transportation paradigm had emerged in the face of:

“. . . a mindset of ‘Our goal is to get people into the city as fast as possible and get them out as fast as possible and our major thoroughfares are for cars.’ But there is a different culture now where the people are pushing back saying ‘No, we want traffic calming; we don't want our seven-year-olds getting killed[1] . . . as they cross the street for school because they don't have a lot of pedestrian infrastructure’” (Informant 33).

I was curious whether using a public health frame was compelling to city staff and the public and found mixed results. While sometimes resonant in certain instances, public health never became the leading message in public communication. Most informants could articulate the link between health and the transportation plans, but the messaging to the community was focused on livability, quality of life, or economic vitality. One informant felt that it was helpful to have public health as yet another reason to promote active transportation.

However, some policy actors felt strongly that health was a concept capable of producing significant learning and insight because people could easily connect it to their own life. During the engagement process, one informant:

". . . realized how powerful a touchstone health really was. That health became this place where you could have conversations that you couldn't in other contexts . . . The beauty of the health piece. . . is that health. . . is a common experience" (Informant 21).

Partly for this reason, some informants suggested public health was an effective way to communicate equity impacts from transportation.

Where connecting to public health was most helpful was in building a people-centered transportation coalition:

"They're trying to continuously figure out how to get more people on board. And they have discovered that the environmental argument doesn't get a lot of new folks to the table, but the health argument has a bunch of allies that they were ignoring and are . . . excited to have at the table" (Informant 11).

A formal coalition of advocates existed in Denver, including public health organizations, although public health was still not a primary message in public communication:

"[The Denver Streets Partnership has] the American Heart Association, AARP, and groups who are worried about renters’ rights and displacement . . . .The YIMBY’s (Yes in my back yard) learn how to speak health and the transit people learn how to talk land use. I don't hear the health indicators, other than perhaps Vision Zero, from anyone else" (Informant 25).
 
This may suggest that public health need not be the leading frame to be successful in efforts to promote people-centered transportation. Alternatively, it could suggest that a public health frame is currently underutilized in public discussion and, if used as part of a dialogue, has the potential to generate insight among participants.

[1] In 2021, a seven-year-old was killed crossing the street with her mother and a crossing guard. This occurred after the adoption of the transportation plans I examined.

Originally published in the January 2024 issue (v.44) of Streetsmart News

In this newsletter, we'll examine the indirect influence indicators have within a planning process, as compared to the direct and instrumental use and influence of indicators, as discussed in my previous newsletters. Drawing from my dissertation, The Use and Influence of Health Indicators in Municipal Transportation Plans, this article discusses the importance of how indicators are developed such that they influence the thinking of policy actors and can help set an agenda for policy change.

Let's begin with a couple key points about how policy learning and change happen. My research drew from Communicative Planning Theory as well as two policy process theories from political science, the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) and the Multiple Streams Framework (MSF). Learning is defined as a change in beliefs about policy goals or solutions, with the assumption that beliefs are the "glue" of politics. (1) Communicative Planning Theory, and the ACF to a degree, assert that learning occurs through dialogue; that is, people learn when they are engaged in meaningful conversation in a lower-conflict, consensus-oriented discussion forum. Policy learning is a confirmed path to policy change. (2)

In all the cities under study, indicators had been developed in the context of community engagement processes, in which the public defined the key issues, goals, and objectives in the transportation plans. From there, city staff and consultants developed indicators to match the goals and objectives articulated by the public, typically with feedback from standing or plan-related advisory committees. As such, indicators were perceived as legitimate by policy actors. This differs from situations where the validity of the data is debated within contentious policy processes and/or processes where outside experts create the indicators.

My dissertation confirmed MSF research that demonstrates that indicators have the ability to draw attention to key issues and to frame them as problems. Policy actors frame issues as problems to justify public intervention. In my cases, the primary issue framed as a problem in many plans was about equity: equitable access to employment, transportation affordability, disparities in health outcomes, etc. Based on informant responses, this was the first time these problems had been so clearly defined within the city's transportation plans. Indicators helped people see disparities more clearly, such as this housing and transportation affordability indicator:

"A lot of the shock came from the expense of transportation in the Indianapolis region, because . . . there's a huge gap in regional job accessibility and it makes the combined housing and transportation costs the third highest in the country among our peer metros. And that usually takes people aback” (Informant 34). 

Informants noted that indicator selection, being so clearly connected to community values and goals, helps frame problems that policy actors want to highlight:

“The data that you show pushes your agenda . . . . The fact that we are calling out and even researching how expensive it is to travel in Indianapolis and the disparity . . . I mean, that conveys a value” (Informant 31).

Dialogue helped not only to raise awareness of the issues but create a shared understanding and changes in policy beliefs (i.e., learning), such as the dialogue in this equity workshop:

“It was the dialogue, quite frankly . . . you're sitting in a small group around a table with people who live in this community going, ‘Whoa, wait a minute here,’ and it's like, . . . ‘Oh, I had not thought about that’ . . . . I think there are a lot of people, including many of the staff members, who are like, . . . ‘This is a lot bigger conversation than we intended’” (Informant 21).

Note that these awareness and learning opportunities only happened within the earliest parts of the transportation planning process. Once the planning processes move from setting goals to the later stages of analysis and project selection, the role of indicators changes from sparking "ideas" to providing "data" and ammunition for "argument." (3)

While indicators can help illuminate a problem, informants emphasized that it was the combination of data and dialogue that produces shared understanding. In fact, it was difficult to determine if the discussion about the indicator itself or policy goals more generally generated this shared understanding because the two were so intertwined. The combination of data and argument can also set the policy agenda and help advocate for policy change:

It's "not just the numbers . . . but the point, the narrative, the messaging around that, when you can use that with a broader audience, that includes not just the public, but civic leadership, community stakeholders, or . . . organizational type partners . . . I do think that can push leadership” (Informant 35, original emphasis). 

In sum, make sure you develop indicators inclusively so that the users buy into them and they reflect community values. If indicators are developed by independent experts without community input, they run the risk of not being useful or perceived as illegitimate. Most importantly, the opportunity for learning and shared understanding is lost. The greatest opportunity for policy learning is within the earliest stages of a planning process: indicator development and the existing conditions analysis of a plan. Use these opportunities to raise awareness of problems and get them on the agenda for change.

1. Paul Sabatier (1987). Knowledge, policy-oriented learning and policy change: An advocacy coalition framework. Knowledge: Creation, Diffusion, Utilization, 8(4), 649-692.
2. Christopher Weibe (2018). Instrument constituencies and the advocacy coalition framework: An essay on the comparisons, opportunities, and intersections. Policy and Society, 37(1), 59-73.
3. Carol H. Weiss (1991). Policy research: Data, ideas, or arguments? In P. Wagner (Ed.) Social sciences and modern states: National experiences and theoretical crossroads (pp. 307-332). Cambridge University Press.

Originally published in the November 2023 issue (v.43) of Streetsmart News

This newsletter focuses on another component of my dissertation, The Use and Influence of Health Indicators in Municipal Transportation Plans. In my last newsletter, I discussed the key indicator characteristics that made them for useful for transportation decision-making. I'll continue in this newsletter discussing the instrumental use of indicators--the presumption that indicators inform decisions--but focus on the organizational aspects of developing and using indicators.

First of all, none of the people I interviewed (city and transportation planners, advocates, public health practitioners, etc.) felt that data was the problem, despite whatever challenges they may have had with spatial scale, measurability, or the like. One informant was clear:

“I don't think it's because the data isn't usable or available. It's because of the systems. We do not have the systems in place to use the data in the way they're intended to be used” (Informant 35).

In some cases, different departments, such as public health and city planning, collaborated to develop indicators. The development process helped "force different departments to talk to each other" (Informant 12) or otherwise generate some policy alignment through indicator alignment. While helpful, this was not a critical factor in terms of having an influence on administrative decision-making. The three things that mattered most were:

1. Elected and/or departmental leadership had adopted a "data-driven" governance paradigm
2. Leadership secured sufficient funding for building the data infrastructure to monitor indicators over time and ensured that staff had the technical capacity to manage indicators (or a contract in place for consultant support)
3. Leadership had changed organizational procedures with a clear use case for the indicators

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The data-driven paradigm, as compared to one based on territoriality or a "cash grab" (Informant 36), was one that valued transparency, accountability, and fairness in decision-making. In two cases, elected leadership drove this approach, which in turn became infused within the culture of the departments. Non-profit organizations helped municipalities be accountable for the goals set in their plans--sometimes they even created their own progress reports.

Having sufficient funding may seem obvious, but some municipalities did not fully appreciate the degree of infrastructure required to monitor indicators over time. Indicator development was no problem--many cities had funding to develop the indicators as part of transportation plan development--but tracking indicators over time required new structures and funding.

Finally, having a clear procedural connection for the indicators was important. In one case, the city had data-driven leadership, sufficient funding, and was tracking indicators over time but they had not created a clear enough link from indicator reporting to decision-making. Specifically, they were reporting on systems monitoring indicators during budgeting decisions. As one informant reported:

It was “a good half-hour of city council just free-associating on their fears and anxieties. It had nothing to do with, like, ‘Are we getting where [we want to be] going?’” (Informant 25)

When reporting on indicators, you need an action proposal. Otherwise, you use indicators as an analytical input to a decision. The most successful cases used evaluation criteria as part of capital improvement programming; that is, a clear nexus between the data and the decision.

In short, to influence administrative decision-making: Ensure the organization has sufficient financial and technical capacity to create data infrastructure. Create accountability mechanisms such as required internally-produced progress reports; if the city doesn't, then advocates can step in. Make sure that indicators are used for a specific routine or analysis in order for them to be influential.

Originally published in the September 2023 issue (v. 42) of Streetsmart News

Municipal transportation plans can play a vital role in shaping the health and well-being of the public. By incorporating health indicators into these plans, municipalities can promote active transportation, reduce air pollution, and improve access to healthy food options. But are these indicators used and do they influence municipal transportation decision-making? Through a case study of five cities my dissertation, The Use and Influence of Health Indicators in Municipal Transportation Plans, explored which factors contributed to use and influence. By indicators, I mean constructs measuring a condition; in the transportation world these are typically called performance measures.

Let's start with the instrumental use of indicators and their usefulness. The instrumental use of indicators is likely the way most people conceptualize their use: technical information as an input to a decision. In the transportation plans I examined, there were two primary instrumental use cases. The first was systems monitoring, in which municipalities constructed baseline conditions using indicators with the intention to monitor them over time, ostensibly to assess progress and course correct. All the plans examined had this use case. The second use case was prioritization. Indicators were either used to prioritize projects within the plan itself or they were developed to be used as evaluation criteria at a later date--primarily within capital improvement programming.

I explored both indicator usability factors and organizational factors to determine how indicators were used in administrative decision-making. I'll focus on the indicator usability factors in this newsletter. By indicator usability, I'm referring to indicator credibility (e.g., accuracy, reliability), salience (e.g., policy-relevance, timeliness), and legitimacy (i.e., are they trusted by users and stakeholders?). Overall, the legitimacy of indicators was not a concern of any of the people I interviewed. This may be because they were developed in the context of community engagement processes (more on that in another newsletter).

In the prioritization use case, the primary concern was in the geographic spatial scale of the indicators; this was especially true for health outcome data, which tends to be aggregated into large geographies. The systems monitoring use case, on the other hand, faced additional challenges. The geographic scale of the data was sometimes a concern, but concerns about data availability, measurability, accuracy, timeliness, and ease of communication (i.e., interpretable) were more often raised. For those who wanted indicators to serve as an accountability mechanism, measurability was important. Timeliness was essential to make adjustments in programs and projects:

“There's a real understandable lean towards using data that's going to be available anyway . . . Census-type data . . . but it's very slow, it's very delayed, it's very infrequent . . . . If there's a course correction needed, will you know it before it's too late?” (Informant 25)

Another key aspect of indicators is whether indicators were output or outcome focused; both have their own advantages and shortcomings. Output indicators measure an activity (e.g., miles of bike lanes) and outcome indicators measure the desired result or condition (e.g., bicycle mode shift). Outcome indicators faced timeliness and attribution challenges because the desired condition may taken many years to achieve and several different factors may contribute to that outcome:

"You're not actually going to see change on obesity . . . over one year, three years, or maybe even five years . . . let alone attribute any change to the ped[estrian] plan . . . . It's fine, but . . . what is it really telling us and does it really matter?" (Informant 35)

Output indicators, on the other hand, run the risk of measuring an activity that may not ultimately contribute to the desired outcome:

“[The city's accountability structure] is very focused on: ‘Are you doing the things you promised?' which are about outputs, not outcomes. Not, ‘Are you doing the most important things?'” (Informant 56)

In short: Know which indicator usability characteristics are important for your use case and use a mix of output and outcome measures.

Originally published in the June 2023  edition (v. 41) of Streetsmart News
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A diverse group of built environment practitioners ame together after the emergence of COVID-19 and the death of George Floyd to develop principles for centering health equity into built environment work. The result was the PHEAL principles. PHEAL has inspired the two initiatives below:

Originally published in the February 2022 edition of Streetsmart News (v. 40)
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As discussed in the APHA policy statement, the effects of segregation have had lasting effects on people of color. This includes reduced economic opportunity and more severe impacts on health from the urban heat island effect (discussed in a previous newsletter). The results from a joint project by FiveThirtyEight and ABC news, The Lasting Legacy Of Redlining, show that historically redlined areas are still primarily populated by people of color: "In total, we analyzed the demographics of 138 metropolitan areas where HOLC (Home Owners’ Loan Corporation) drew maps, using data provided by the University of Richmond’s Mapping Inequality project and by the 2020 census. And we found that nearly all formerly redlined zones in the country are still disproportionately Black, Latino or Asian compared with their surrounding metropolitan area, while two-thirds of greenlined zones — neighborhoods that HOLC deemed 'best' for mortgage lending — are still overwhelmingly white." However, it should be noted that a different problem is happening in some cities, where gentrification has pushed people of color out of historically redlined areas and white people have moved in.

Originally published in the February 2022 edition of Streetsmart News (V. 40)
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ITE's Health and Transportation Committee has been busy this past year producing webinars and "Quick Bites" (something like a cross between a white paper and fact sheet) to help transportation professionals better integrate health into transportation. If you are looking for a quick, easy, and accessible way to learn about and communicate transportation and health, take a look at the these three Quick Bites finished in December 2021: Transportation as a Determinant of Health, Health and Co-Benefits of Active Transportation, and Transportation for Mental Health and Happiness.

The American Public Health Association Policy Statement has updated its policy statement, Improving Health through Transportation and Land Use Policies, to better address equity. The new policy statement, Ensuring Equity in Transportation and Land Use Decisions to Promote Health and Well-Being in Metropolitan Areas, using a social determinants of health framework to identify the pathways by which land use and transportation decisions impact health equity. Key issues include authentic community engagement, the legacy of redlining on economic opportunity and health, and transportation investments that have severed communities. Strategies and policies at federal, state, and local levels are recommended to address these inequities and improve health outcomes.

Vehicle electrification often gets promoted as the best strategy for reducing greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) in the transportation sector. However, new research shows that active travel can not only better reduce GHG but also reduce traffic-related deaths as well as improve other health outcomes. In the journal article Health Benefits of Strategies for Carbon Mitigation in US Transportation, 2017-2050 (paywall), the health benefits of active transportation are compared to the electrification of cars as ways to decarbonize the transportation sector. Results showed that the active travel scenario avoided 167,000 deaths and gained 2.5 million disability-adjusted life years by 2050, monetized at $1.6 trillion using the value of a statistical life. Carbon emissions were reduced by 24% from baseline. Electric cars avoided 1,400 deaths and gained 16,400 disability-adjusted life years, monetized at $13 billion. These take-aways can be used to improve public health and urgently reduce carbon emissions in transportation by centering active travel in public policy.