Community Planning

Image courtesy of the Boston Region Metropolitan Planning Organization.

To grow from within, [one] needs only fair opportunity for jobs, education, housing and access to culture. — Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (1968)

Why is Community Planning Important to WFRC's Work?

All residents of the Wasatch Front should have access to the opportunities that are important to lead a productive, healthy, and fulfilling life.

WFRC, through its Council of elected officials and other community leaders, has adopted an organizational goal to “promote inclusive engagement in transportation planning processes and equitable access to affordable and reliable transportation options.” To advance this goal, WFRC will:

Ensure inclusive engagement and participation in WFRC planning and decision-making processes
Employ an Access to Opportunities framework as a primary lens to evaluate transportation, land use, and economic development initiatives.

Providing access to opportunities is core to WFRC’s work. Accessibility means people are able to easily, efficiently, and safely reach key destinations including jobs, schools, healthcare, childcare, parks, places of worship, and grocery stores. Access to opportunities can be increased by providing quality transportation options and by coordinating housing, land use, and economic development with transportation. This can have significant impacts on overall community livability, while breaking down barriers to individual and family upward economic mobility.

How Do We Consider Community Planning in Our Work?

Access to Opportunities

Increased accessibility to jobs, schools, healthcare, grocery, social services, parks, community centers, recreation, retail, and entertainment have significant impacts on community livability and foster upward mobility.

WFRC and its partner organizations use Access to Opportunities (ATO) to collectively pursue the best possible transportation plans and land use decisions in support of community choice and economic vitality.

Community Outreach

In 2022, WFRC, with its transportation partners (MAG, UDOT, and UTA), created the Wasatch Choice Community Advisory Committee. This committee is built upon the goal that all communities have access to opportunities for work, education, and other essential destinations. The Wasatch Choice partners are committed to identifying solutions for positive change. The purpose of the Community Advisory Committee is to enhance the engagement of communities to the Wasatch Choice Vision while advising Wasatch transportation partner agencies on transportation and land use decisions.

WFRC’s public involvement and outreach policies strive to make community engagement opportunities more inclusive.

Decision-Making

WFRC is incorporating community planning into the scenario analysis and project prioritization processes of the Regional Transportation Plan (RTP) and analyzing how external forces impact equity focus areas (EFAs).

WFRC will continue to explore community considerations in reviewing and scoring project applications for Transportation Improvement Program (TIP) and Transportation and Land Use Connection (TLC) projects.

Equity Focus Areas

WFRC’s Equity Focus Areas (EFAs) are geographic areas for which additional consideration may be given within the planning and programming processes for future transportation, economic development, and other projects administered through WFRC. EFAs are used by WFRC in support of meeting the Council-established goal of promoting “inclusive engagement in transportation planning processes and equitable access to affordable and reliable transportation options.”

EFAs are designated from Census block group geographic zones that meet the criteria described below. Census block groups are used as these are the smallest geographic areas for which more detailed household characteristics like employment, income, vehicle ownership, commute trip, and English language proficiency are available. [More information on EFA methodology]

For analysis purposes, Equity Focus Areas are those census block groups where any of the following criteria is met:

Greater than 20 percent Low-Income — low-income populations are highlighted, as a lack of access to reliable and efficient transportation can be a major barrier to economic mobility.
Greater than 40 percent Persons of Color— racial-ethnic minority populations comprise this criterion, as many land use and transportation investments in the U.S. have had disproportionately adverse impacts upon communities of color.

WFRC recognizes the limitations of geography-based equity analysis, as proper planning work considers together the needs of individuals, groups and sectors, and geographic areas. However, geography-based equity analyses offer a useful starting point for the consideration and prioritization of projects that will serve specific community needs.

Equity Focus Areas & Access to Opportunities

ATO can help us see gaps between residents and employment opportunities and other basic needs at a neighborhood-level. This is especially relevant for underserved populations that may benefit most from alternate forms of transportation in order to access key needs.

These maps show block groups identified meeting the WFRC Equity Focus Areas definition (left-most) and their workplace accessibility (TAZ-based ATO) scores for vehicle travel (center map) and the transit system (right-most), relative to the MPO region as a whole. Areas with higher ATO scores are shown in red and orange on the two maps. Areas where Equity Focus Areas have less workplace connectivity are shown in yellow, green, and blue. This interactive web map also shows the same datasets.

These maps highlight that access by transit is more limited for residents of Equity Focus Areas in western Salt Lake County, Layton and the surrounding area east of I-15 in Davis County, and eastern Weber County. This is due to gaps in a frequent transit network in more suburban parts of the region as well as the fewer number of jobs located in these areas. Access to jobs and services via car is more limited for Equity Focus Areas in eastern Weber and Davis Counties, again due to the relative lack of employment opportunities in these areas. Land use diversity, or locating non-residential developments closer to homes, would improve access for these communities.

Supporting Resources