Linking Long-Range Transportation Planning with Project Planning in Support of the Environmental Review Process

This report investigates potential methods of linking transportation planning in Texas, principally long-range planning, with the environmental clearance process required of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The purpose of the research is to achieve time and monetary savings by streamlining the NEPA process. These savings result principally by reducing duplicative efforts performed during the transportation planning and NEPA processes. To achieve this goal, the report reviews the effectiveness of practices and initiatives in Texas and around the county designed to encourage planning documentation that supports the NEPA process. The report then assesses the challenges involved with implementing these practices in Texas and makes a series of recommendations designed to be implemented by various agencies in Texas that would provide linkages between transportation planning and the NEPA process.

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