Context-Sensitive Transportation Design

City and county officials have become more knowledgeable about the impact of roadways on land use, and they are demanding a say in how their state roads are upgraded. And the federal government, which pays the lion's share of most major road projects, has come to agree that local involvement is important. Harold Linnenkohl sees those winds of change, and as the new head of the Georgia DOT, the last thing he wants is to turn the dozens of major transportation projects headed his way into wars. Then everyone would lose. "The transportation system is choked down, and now we have to go in and fix it," Linnenkohl says. "But we don't want to put a heavy thumb on people. That won't work." What will work, he says, is a system rooted in two precepts: First, get all the stakeholders at the table at the start of the process; and second, compromise. That first is relatively easy. The second is where things get dicey.