Teaching how to address major challenges of TOD projects

The National Charrette Institute (NCI) is a non-profit that teaches professionals and community leaders the NCI Charrette System, a design based, collaborative project management system that features a multiple-day charrette. The National Charrette Institute teaches the Charrette System for addressing the two major challenges of Transit Oriented Development (TOD).

• TOD’s have a complex stakeholder context.
• TOD’s are very complex design problems.

TODs have a large set of community stakeholders each with their own and often-conflicting agendas. In addition, TOD’s have multiple project partners including transit agencies, state and local transportation departments, local planning agencies, metropolitan planning organizations and developers.

The NCI Charrette System anticipates potential stakeholder challenges and opportunities early in the project. The stakeholder analysis tool identifies potential project promoters and blockers as well as key decision makers, charting a process for involving them well before and during the charrette. The charrette itself involves all stakeholders through a series of short feedback loops over the course of several days. These feedback sessions build trust and understanding that is the foundation for long term support.

Perhaps no other type of project involves so many modes of transport including rail, buses, taxi, car, pedestrian, and cycling. In the NCI Charrette System, all viewpoints and professional specialties work in parallel from the very start of the project using a team approach. This process guards against costly rework that can result when critical data or analysis arrives after the design has been developed. Design and plans that result from charrettes commonly require very little rework through implementation and engineering.