Minnesota Department of Transportation

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Research & Innovation

Measuring Livability for the Metro District Livability Initiative Framework

Need Statement 713

Problem

The Livability Initiative is a newer MnDOT Metro District initiative that aims to improve the livability of the neighborhoods along project corridors. The Livability Initiative will work toward a livable transportation system through project work and partnerships with agencies that have the authority to address livability needs outside of MnDOT’s reach. The Livability Initiative leverages partnerships with other agencies and uses the quality, type, and location of transportation facilities and services to help achieve broader community goals.

Community feedback from Rethinking I-94 and guidance from the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) inspired and informed the Livability Initiative. MnDOT Metro District’s Livability Office used this community feedback and guidance to create the Livability Framework. The Livability Framework consists of the following seven pillars: 1) Health and the Environment, 2) Economic Vitality, 3) Sense of Place, 4) Equity, 5) Trust, 6) Connectivity, and 7) Safety.

The Livability Initiative will identify a set of Livability pilot projects in 2025. To effectively pilot the Livability Initiative, we need a measurement tool that will help us consistently integrate the Livability Framework into the transportation project development process. When the project development stage begins, the Livability Framework should guide MnDOT staff to better understand a neighborhood’s Livability challenges and opportunities. The Livability Framework must be developed into a measurement tool for it to be properly used, evaluated, understood, and communicated.

The Livability Initiative requires research on how to best measure, represent, interpret, evaluate, and track each pillar within the Livability Framework. These measurements will inform the development of a Livability Measurement Tool that will flag livability challenges and opportunities for planners and project managers pre-scoping a transportation project.
The measurements identified and the tool created by researchers will be a major part of ensuring the successful implementation of the Livability Framework. The Livability Initiative will have a better chance of scaling up to a state-level office if we have a tool that guides the consistent and successful application of the Livability Framework for the set of pilot projects.

Objective

The primary objective of this research is to create a Livability Measurement Tool that represents the Livability Framework consistently and is reflective of MnDOT’s mission and the Statewide Multimodal Transportation Plan (SMTP). The Livability Measurement Tool will include both quantitative and qualitative data. Due to the subjective nature of livability, qualitative data are essential to understanding how livable a neighborhood is. This tool will be used in the pre-scoping and planning stages of transportation projects to identify livability needs along a corridor and help planners and project managers make decisions on where and how to incorporate Livability components into projects. The tool should include effective illustrations, maps, and clear descriptions of indices to make the tool easy to use and understand.

To deliver the Livability Measurement Tool, the research needs to:

  1. Evaluate policy-relevant and evidence-informed best practices for measuring each pillar by quantitative and/or qualitative indices.
  2. Identify a complete set of measurements that appropriately represent the Livability Framework.
    1. The final set of measurements should address the challenge that certain indices can represent many livability pillars and may overlap. The final set of measurements should aim for a balanced representation of the Livability pillars, and neither over or underrepresent any pillar or index.
    2. Measurements should be drawn from available and accessible data and will include both quantitative and qualitative data. Data that is not available, but is desired for an effective tool, should be noted. Within the list of unavailable data, identify data that can be collected via survey questions given through public engagement efforts. If researchers decide a survey would be helpful to fill in Livability data gaps, identify a reasonable set of livability questions for such a survey that aims to gather essential livability information. The questions in the survey should be easy for people to answer. For example, there may be no data on how safe a person feels walking around their neighborhood, the survey can pose a question like, “How safe do you feel walking in your neighborhood?”, to close the data gap on safety.
  3. Determine proper threshold levels that indicate key livability needs within a neighborhood.
  4. Configure how data collected through a livability survey can be integrated into the Livability Measurement Tool. Inputting survey data into the tool should be easy for end-users of the tool to do.
  5. Identify and use best practices for clearly communicating indices and thresholds to both internal staff and external stakeholders so that livability needs can be clearly understood. This tool should support end users in making decisions on how and where to make livability improvements.

Pertaining to the second point on the list, the Livability Initiative has engaged in high-level, exploratory work on measuring the Livability Framework. This exploratory list of components will be shared at the start of this research project. Additionally, measurements in the equity pillar should reflect MnDOT’s Office of Advancing Equity’s recent research and direction.

Previous research

This project will build on previous research to measure livability by:

  • Focusing specifically on the seven pillars in MnDOT Metro District’s Livability Framework and ensuring a balanced representation of at times overlapping livability indicators.
  • Identifying and considering more recently developed tools and technologies that expand the ability to measure the Livability pillars.
  • Identifying the most useful, accurate, and efficient ways to measure subjective elements of livability such as sense of place, trust, and safety.
  • Identifying the scale at which Livability can be measured most accurately across the pillars (e.g., at the level of a corridor, neighborhood, county, or the Metro District.)
  • Tailoring the measurements of Livability to Minnesota (e.g., weather)

References

  1. Community and Quality of Life: Data Needs for Informed Decision Making (2002)
  2. An evaluation of livability in creating transit-enriched communities for improved regional benefits (2013)
  3. Livability and Subjective Well-Being Across European Cities (2019)
  4. Measuring the Livability of an Urban Centre: An Exploratory Study of Key Performance Indicators (2004)
  5. Western Michigan’s Transportation Research Center for Livability Communities
  6. The indicators and methods used for measuring urban livability: a scoping review (2020)
  7. Measuring Livability at the Neighborhood Scale- Development of Indicators and Methods for the Comparison between Neighborhoods and Best Practices within the Chosen City (2019)
  8. Qualitative and Quantitative Analysis to Advance Transportation (2023)
  9. On the promotion of human flourishing (2017)

Strategic priorities

  • Innovation & Future Needs
    For MnDOT as a whole, this research is a strategic priority to MnDOT because it will support MnDOT's recognition that the human condition should be addressed with any proposed investment. Because Livability is an emerging concept in transportation planning, this research has the potential to place MnDOT at the leading edge of Livability research and implementation. Additionally, this research will prepare MnDOT for a potential future in which Livability is a requirement or standard for transportation planning and programming.

    This research will allow Livability Office to make well-informed decisions in incorporating Livability into projects in the upcoming phase of this initiative. An enhanced ability to evaluate the Livability of project corridors will enable planners and project managers to make innovative investments that address current and future needs of communities. To create innovative projects and investments, MnDOT needs trust from and good rapport with communities. The deliverable from this research has the potential to improve public trust in MnDOT because it will show stakeholders that we have a deliberate and objective process to make neighborhoods near projects more livable.
  • Advancing Equity
    The creation of MnDOT Metro District’s Livability Initiative was largely inspired by MnDOT’s need to ameliorate actions of the past that overburden underrepresented and underserved communities. Thus, the Livability Initiative aims to create equitable transportation systems that fairly distribute the burdens and benefits of investments through decisions informed by thorough community engagement.
  • Although equity is identified as an individual Livability Pillar, it is the linchpin of the Livability Initiative as it influences each Livability pillar. For example, the Safety pillar is intended to extend beyond traditional transportation safety goals to include equitable safety goals. An equitable safety goal gets specific about addressing disparities in safety outcomes by race, gender, ability, and income level. Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) are more likely than White people to be involved in a crash resulting in death or serious injury. This research should impart a new understanding of these types of inequities, amongst all pillars, in the Metro District and along particular corridors, and it will enable deliberate actions to effectively address them. This research will also give MnDOT Metro District the ability to accurately measure and monitor equity over the years to determine the effectiveness of efforts. 
  • Safety
    Findings from this study will support the Livability Initiative in expanding MnDOT Metro District’s consideration of safety. A more thorough exploration of safety needs lends to more deliberate and comprehensive solutions that increase the safety of the system.

    The Safety Livability Pillar aims to support a transportation system that creates safe travel experiences for all people using all modes of transportation. The Safety Pillar also supports investments that address the poor safety outcomes that disproportionately affect Black, Indigenous, and people of color and low-income communities. This research will afford MnDOT the ability to measure and monitor an expanded consideration of safety over the years to determine the effectiveness of efforts. The expanded safety consideration includes assessments on perceived personal safety along MnDOT’s highways.
  • Climate Change & Environment
    The Livability Initiative will support furthering MnDOT’s implementation goals related to the environment, sustainability and public health.

Expected outcomes

  • New or improved business practices, procedure, or process
  • New or improved tool or equipment
  • New or improved decision support tool, simulation, or model/algorithm (software)

Expected benefits

  • Environmental Aspects: Air Pollution
    Findings from this research will inform a measurement tool that will be used in project development to assess and identify which communities in the Metro District are overburdened by environmental aspects. The tool will support MnDOT’s effort to increase the health of the air, water, and land to improve the wellbeing of Minnesotans. While environmental considerations are not new to MnDOT, the Livability Initiative’s outcomes will support furthering MnDOT’s implementation goals related to the environment, sustainability, and public health.
  • MnDOT Policy
    The findings of this study will help inform a future Livability policy that will outline a course of action for considering Livability throughout the entire lifecycle of a project.
  • Lifecycle
    The results of this study will allow for a more precise understanding of a communities’ needs. A more precise understanding of livability needs will support an enhanced ability to identify specific solutions and the agencies and organizations that can help. This higher-level collaboration will enable Minnesota’s government to make synchronous investments across agencies. The coordination can lead to better, more efficient investments that lengthen the return-on-investment lifecycle.  
  • Reduce Road User Cost
    This research will result in a tool that can identify which communities in the Metro District are transportation burdened. MnDOT staff can use this information to locate opportunities for adding components to projects to help decrease road-user costs for the most under-resourced users.
  • Safety
    This research will result in a tool that can identify safety deficiencies in the system and communities with poor safety outcomes. The use of this tool will provide a more comprehensive understanding of the safety needs of the system so that coordinated efforts can be made to improve it. The Livability Initiative will further MnDOT’s implementation goals related to safety.
  • Other
    As an outcome of this study, the expanded understanding of community needs beyond transportation will help support MnDOT’s existing asset-management system, as well as broad, state-agency-wide asset management. The Livability Framework necessitates a highly collaborative approach to addressing community needs that can encourage efficient, strategic, and innovative investments across state agencies.

Technical advisory panel

Potential TAP Members: