Back to 2030 Home Page

Public Involvement

Public participation in the long-range transportation planning process was first stressed in Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA) and continued to be a priority in TEA-21. The planning process for Washtenaw County provided various opportunities for the public to review and comment on the plan. Information was provided to the newspaper, radio stations, Ann Arbor cable television, public libraries, local governmental offices, transportation agencies and on the WATS website. Both written and oral public comments were received during the public comment period.

Public Notification

The public was notified of the availability of the draft plan and opportunities for public comment using several different methods: one article appeared in the October 2003 issue of the WATS quarterly newsletter, The Vehicle; one article appeared in the January 2004 issue of The Vehicle; one article in the April 2004 issue of the The Vehicle; two news articles appeared in the Ann Arbor News, one in December 2003 and one in January 2004; notices of the public meetings and document availability was provided on the WATS website and WATS staff notified nearly 200 citizens, agencies, and other interested parties about the draft plan's availability and the public comment opportunities by mail.

Plan Review Opportunities

The draft plan was available for review and public comment beginning December 2003. Copies of the plan summary, plan deficiencies, proposed improvements, unfunded improvements and comment forms, were distributed to 39 locations throughout the county and region with all but two within Washtenaw County. Attempts were made to contact the Sharon Township hall but they did not respond so the plan was not available for review in Sharon Township. The locations where the plan was available for review are shown in Table 2. The 2030 Plan public review documents were also available on the Agency website.

The draft plan notebooks included a memo explaining the plan development process; the dates of public meetings where information would be presented and comments could be provided in person; scheduled adoption dates for the committees to consider the 2030 Plan; a list of locations where the draft plan was available for review; a plan summary including introduction, general background, plan goals, and explanations of how the deficiencies were identified; maps of each of the deficiencies, including jurisdiction-specific maps; listings identifying the funded and unfunded transportation improvements; funding summaries of the proposed improvements; environmental justice analyses and maps for the proposed improvements; and analyses of completed improvements from the 2025 Plan.

To make it convenient for the public to comment on the plan, a comment form was developed and included in the draft plan booklets. The form included several questions regarding the plan and public comment process. Blank sheets were also provided so that citizens could include additional comments. The form was pre-addressed to WATS, but required postage. The forms could be left with the booklet and each location was periodically checked for completed public comment forms. A copy of the public comment form, as well as the comments received by WATS, is included in Appendix A.

Public Comment Opportunities

In addition to the public comment forms included in the draft plan booklets, WATS hosted eighteen public meetings at various locations throughout the county. These meetings were in addition to the regularly scheduled meetings of the WATS Technical Advisory Subcommittee and the WATS Policy Committee.

The public meetings were scheduled for early afternoon, late afternoon and evening so that the public would have the flexibility to attend at several different times of the day. The availability of public transit at the location and geographical equity were two major considerations in determining meeting locations.

A special effort was made to reach out to Environmental Justice target populations in Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti Cities. Meetings were held with the local community groups from this neighborhood during their regular meetings. The meeting format was adjusted to fit each groups needs. WATS staff worked with the local groups and the local transportation agencies to ensure that representatives from the agencies they most wanted to provide comments to were in attendance yet the group was not overwhelmed with agency staff.

A list of the meeting dates, times, and locations is provided in Table 3.

The Ann Arbor City Public meeting was taped and was replayed on CitiTV - Channel 19. The session was taped on Friday April 2 at 7:00 pm. The presentation was aired nine times over the next three weeks. The play schedule for the presentation is shown in Table 4.

Comments provided to WATS through e-mail messages, comment forms, from the Washtenaw County Comprehensive Plan public meetings and the WATS public meetings were summarized and provided to the Technical at their April meeting. Agencies received copies of all of the comments on the transportation improvements or deficiencies. In several instances, improvements were changed in some way to reflect the public comment. Copies of the public comments were also provided to SEMCOG for inclusion as part of their public comment process.

WATS received written comments from twenty-two different people. The comments were received from citizens from the largest communities as well as the smaller communities. Comments received from more than 75 individuals at the public meetings and they were also summarized and are provided in Appendix A. Almost every community in the County was represented in either the written or oral comments received.

In addition to some improvement-specific questions, the citizens expressed concerns about road widening and its relationship to sprawl. Some of the other questions were about the process and criteria for determining the deficiencies, particularly congestion. The comments and discussions that ensued at the various public meetings were primarily focused on particular transportation improvements that were either proposed in the plan or where the citizen felt a need was not met. A comment that was repeated at nearly all of the meetings was the lack of transportation improvements identified by the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) beyond 2007. In response to this particular comment, additional improvements on the MDOT system were included prior to final approval of the plan. The written public comments received by communities of origin are summarized in Table 5. A sample of the form and a summary of the public comments received by WATS are included in Appendix A.

Public Meeting Format

The public meetings were formatted to provide information about the WATS agency, about the long range planning process, the deficiencies and proposed improvements and also to allow time for questions and comments. Information about the plan was presented as large maps showing the identified deficiencies and proposed improvements; handouts detailing the deficiencies, proposed improvements, unfunded improvements and funding breakdowns by types of improvements and cost of improvements were provided. A PowerPoint presentation was also developed to highlight the planning process and to graphically depict the deficiencies at selected locations where transportation improvements were proposed. The presentation included charts and photos of the deficiencies and proposed improvements.

The meeting started with introductions of Agency staffs and the PowerPoint presentation. After the presentation, citizens were encouraged to ask questions either of WATS or representatives of the transportation agencies present.

Next ~ Financial Forecast