This guide was written as a quick primer for transportation professionals and analysts who assess the impacts of proposed transportation actions on communities. It outlines the community impact assessment process, highlights critical areas that must be examined, identifies basic tools and information sources, and stimulates the thought-process related to individual projects. In the past, the consequences of transportation investments on communities have often been ignored or introduced near the end of a planning process, reducing them to reactive considerations at best. The goals of this primer are to increase awareness of the effects of transportation actions on the human environment and emphasize that community impacts deserve serious attention in project planning and development-attention comparable to that given the natural environment. Finally, this guide is intended to provide some tips for facilitating public involvement in the decision making process.
The Public Investment Management (PIM) Reference Guide aims to convey country experiences and good international practices as a basis for decisions on how to address a country-specific PIM reform agenda. The country references are drawn largely from previous diagnostics and technical assistance reports of the World Bank. The application of country diagnostics and assessments has revealed a need to address the following issues when undertaking a country reform in PIM: • Clarification of the definition and scope of public investment and public investment management • Establishment of a sound legal, regulatory, and institutional setting for PIM, making sure it is linked to the budget process • Allocation of roles and responsibilities for key players in PIM across government • Strengthening of guidance on project preappraisal, appraisal, and selection-prioritization procedures and deepening of project appraisal methodologies • Integration of strategic planning, project appraisal-selection, and capital budgeting • Management of multiyear capital budget allocations and commitments • Efforts to address effective implementation, procurement, and monitoring of projects • Strengthening of asset management and ex post evaluation • Integration of PIM and public-private partnership (PPP) in a unified framework • Rationalization and prioritization of the existing PIM project portfolio • Development of a PIM database and information technology in the form of a PIM information system. The PIM Reference Guide does not seek to provide definitive answers or standard guidance for the common PIM issues facing countries. Nor does it seek to provide a detailed template for replication across countries: this would be impossible given the diversity of country situations. Instead, each chapter begins with an overview of the specific reform issue, lists approaches and experiences from different countries, and summarizes the references and good practices to be considered in designing country-specific reform actions.
This synthesis was prepared to report on the state of the practice and to identify effective public involvement using limited resources. Basic information is offered here for transportation agencies to further their efforts in this area. This synthesis provides information about staff and agency experiences in the application of effective and cost-effective strategies and implementation techniques used to engage the public in the development of transportation plans and projects, as well as strategies found to be ineffective. It captures respondents' definitions of successful, effective, and cost-effective public involvement and reveals a rudimentary state of the practice in the areas of costs and measures of effectiveness. Although there appeared to be no clear cut definitions of responsibilities or implementation strategies, similarities and differences were identified in four areas - organizational structure, staffing, cost quantification, and process. Detailed appendices provide abstracts of the literature reviewed and document survey questionnaire interview responses.
