Session: Promoting Rural Planning Through Scenic Byways

March 30

William J. Kelley

Eastern Washington University

This paper explores selected qualities and contributions of scenic byways. The major claim is that byways succeed in their planning efforts because their interests and activities are centrally focused on resources. The byway focus on treasured assets results in a favorable response to plans for promoting and preserving these resources. That response includes strong community and partner support. With increased partnership and community support, byway planning succeeds in providing worthwhile economic and social benefits.

Scenic byways are special places. This panel topic is a good fit with the conference theme of planning’s role and contribution to special places. Over the past year, I’ve had a chance to visit many of the byways across the United States and I would contend that they represent very special places. Much of our country’s best qualities can be experienced on America’s Byways. Those qualities can include not only the outer beauty of natural landscapes and important built features but also the inner beauty of caring about place, appreciating culture and history, and constructing integrative stories.

If context shapes planning, how does the special context of byways shape and condition their role and contribution? I would like to address a few possibilities by exploring the following questions: 1) what are some of the unique features of the byway program at the national and state level that shape local byway efforts; 2) what are some direct and indirect contributions byways provide rural communities; and 3) what are some special features of byway planning?

Focus on resources: A central claim running through my remarks is that byways and their planning efforts are successful because they are grounded in, and in many ways sustained by, a focus on resources. What does that mean? One it means that byways are charged with a narrow scope. Byways are asked to plan for improvements that preserve and promote their resources for the benefit of visitors and residents. But how byways begin and proceed with their responsibilities begs a larger question. Much of planning addresses considerations of what is wrong and what is right about community. It’s a bit simplistic but I would argue that we have choices about which side of the “wrong vs. right” question we focus on and give our greatest emphasis. In byway planning, the focus begins, and the emphasis continues, on the “what’s right” side of the question. I believe that distinction represents a defining difference in the context, process, and outcome of byway planning.

The “right” focus has magic: That focus on “what’s right” with respect to community assets and resources brings a special “planning magic” to the table. When a group comes together to protect, promote, and celebrate the things in the community they love, that effort takes on a special “magic”. That magical power tends to create a positive and attractive environment for planning and participation. The pull of that inviting environment and positive attention on resources brings strong interests and ideas to the table. Strong interests typically yields greater capacity and commitment for implementation.

America’s Byways: So what are important features of byways? There are many detailed elements and my brief comments will hardly scratch the surface. If interested, this paper’s selected references provide a beginning for exploration and the web site of Byways. Org, with its numerous links, provides a comprehensive overview.

More than a beautiful road: To begin with, it’s important to distinguish between scenic roads that have been around for some time and the more recent policy and program efforts represented in the collection of America’s Byways (6,7). Scenic roads have been recognized since the turn of the century. A few states have had scenic road programs in place for decades. For the most part, those earlier designations focused primarily on scenic qualities, had little direct connections to local communities along the road, and rarely included strong planning and management components. America’ s Byways is a bit different.

America’s Byways include the collection of state and national scenic byways that over the past 10 years or so have gone through a somewhat rigorous planning and qualifications process. Qualifications, along with the rewards of recognition, are most substantial for the national byways. Another operative term is collection suggesting some overarching set of criteria and unifying policy and programs. All national byways, and most state ones, not only contain significant resources, they must have in place plans for promoting and preserving those resources, and they must demonstrate organizational capacity to carry out those plans (9). Eligibility for their recognition includes not just scenic resources but five other intrinsic qualities: recreation, natural, historic, cultural, and archeological (11). A Native American byway might feature its cultural resources. A public lands byway might feature its natural landscape and ecology. But unlike scenic roads of the past, America’s Byways contain not just one, but multiple resources.

Diverse resource value: Including a diverse set of resources or assets has important benefits. One, by identifying and promoting multiple resources, the richer collection provides a stronger set of attractions for visitors. Secondly, in the planning and management of diverse resources, there is a much greater potential to attract a diverse set of knowledgeable and motivated partners. And thirdly, the weaving together and interpreting how these resources interrelate results in a more powerful story of place that produces greater awareness and appreciation on the part of community residents and a richer experience for visitors.

Required Plan: A required corridor management plan (see Figure 1 for elements) insures uniformity and consistency across important management considerations. At the same time, flexibility toward goal achievement is provided by allowing each local byway to develop its own set of strategies and schedules to match their community context and available resources. Technical support documents, (9,11), funded by FHWA, helped provide planning guidelines for local communities. Some of the elements in Figure 1 are similar to elements in comprehensive plans but two or three aspects are different. One there is the overarching focus on the resources. And the required marketing and interpretive elements suggest promotional and storytelling activities not often found in traditional comprehensive plans.

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Figure 1: Summary of Corridor Management Plan Elements

Dual Goals: Planners are accustomed to dual and sometimes competing and even conflicting goals. In community planning this duality can produce significant challenges. In the case of byways, the program does have dual goals; promoting and protecting the corridor’s intrinsic qualities, but I have not seen evidence of substantial challenge or controversy on byways. For the most part, I have seen the dual goals serve to bring together a diverse and enthusiastic set of actors who thoughtfully seek to balance between the two goals. Some partners may be more interested in promotion, others in preservation, but they are united in a shared appreciation for the resource and work together to enhance that appreciation for others.

Another shared dual element of traditional and byway planning is the long range vs. short range plan perspective. Byways have long term visions and objectives in their corridor management plans but they also have a strong orientation toward implementing projects and programs in the near term. Somewhat different from traditional planning, byway plan implementation is accomplished solely through partnerships, education, and incentives; not regulation.

Program Functions: At the national level, the program serves 3 functions: recognition, grants, and technical assistance. A small staff in Federal Highway Administration takes care of the first two. Another small office under special contract, the Resource Center in Duluth, takes care of technical assistance in the form of training workshops, publications, and conferences. Supporting these efforts are major national partners such as the public lands agencies (USFS, NPS, BLM, USFW), special interest groups including Scenic America, Historic Trust, Travel Industry of America, Recreation Coalition, as well as other groups and agencies concerned with transportation, tourism, recreation, and resource conservation.

The above functions, and similar partners, are mirrored in byway offices at the state level. Often one person or even a partial FTE, housed in a state transportation office, oversees the state byway program. In active states, I am often amazed at how much gets accomplished with so little staff. The secret ingredient at the state, local and national level is “many hands can do a lot of work”. The “many hands” are brought about through partnerships.

Ideals: The National Scenic Byways Program, while first considered back in the 60s was not formally initiated until ISTEA in 1991 (6,7). Final program guidelines occurred in 1995 (8). Planners appreciate the positive shift of national transportation policy that occurred with that legislation. New policies and programs under ISTEA began to promote increased connections to community, increased funding for transportation enhancements, and increased attention to improving places as well as roads.

To me, the National Scenic Byway Program exemplifies those improved community connections and building place policies. National criteria and intent is laid out but it is strictly a volunteer and community based response that is the driver. Within that program, there are supporting national and state roles but the central feature is the grassroots and collaborative planning efforts. The program provides incentives, not mandates. The national program and the participating states offer byway communities special recognition and supporting grant funds. The national program’s focus on recognizing and celebrating the collection of byway resources and stories contributes to the building of “place”.

I sometimes quip with my academic colleagues that even Thomas Jefferson would have been pleased with the federated aspects of the National Scenic Byway Program. There is a national role, a state role, but the important activities, outcomes, and control occur at the local level.

Qualifier- too soon to tell: I don’t want to overstate the significance of this somewhat new and small program. Most byways have existed for only 5-10 years and judgement on sustainability will have to wait. Some states are still “testing the water” for long term program benefits that would warrant their full investment. At the national level, there is no guarantee that Congress will re-authorize and fund the Byway Program under the new transportation act. But the trends over th short history of NSB support modest claims of success. When the program began there were only about a dozen participating states, now there are over forty. The initial round of national designations in 1996 honored 20 byways, now there are ninety - five (see Figure 2). Ten years ago, there were only a hundred or so state scenic byways, today there are more than 500. And the list of state byways expands each year.

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Figure 2: Map of America’s Byways

Dollar support and other values: While the NSB grants program is probably one of the smallest categorical funds in the DOT budget, in the past 12 years it has delivered important support for byway and community enhancements. It has awarded over a 150 million dollars that helped fund over 1200 projects around the country (see Figure 3). The figure identifies strong support for planning, funding for marketing that increases tourism opportunities, and physical improvements that enhance byway resources. Two other observations about the grants program are worth noting. One is the degree of leveraging. It’s not uncommon to see upwards of 50% match in many of the byway applications. The return on investment can be even larger (as an example, see the San Juan Skyway case below). And these dollars provide direct economic benefits to the local communities. It’s typically a point of pride and commitment that those grant project dollars be directed to local contractors and service providers. Secondly, these funded projects often have greater value than dollars can measure. I have observed the strong sense of community pride and accomplishment that renovation of a small visitor’s center can give to an outback and economically disadvantaged rural community. In some cases, those renovated buildings have been historically significant; so not only are rural economies and community pride enhanced, but rural heritage is preserved.

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Figure 3: Grant Profile: 1998-2002

Community Benefits of Byways: What are some other benefits of the byway program? There are two primary ones. In a general sense, byways produce contributions to economic development through expanded tourism and they provide resource stewardship and preservation through selected programs. The other panelists have provided some good examples of those benefits in their states. I’ll attempt to expand some on the two primary benefits with examples from a cross section of America’s Byways .

Economic Development : Byways offer enhanced promotional opportunity by assembling a set of attractions and experiences along a travel corridor.

The Creole Nature Trail is a byway along the coastal prairies of southwest Louisiana near Lake Charles. The extensive wetlands and open space in the corridor provides habitat for hundreds of thousand of migrating and resident bird specie along with other abundant fish and wildlife. While much appreciated and visited by locals, the corridor’s natural resources were not well recognized outside the region. Forming a byway organization and developing and implementing a Corridor Management Plan brought together strong public and private partners that were able to assemble sets of attractions and develop visitor amenities along the corridor. Locals may know site locations and stories. For visitors, these have to be assembled. In the case of the Creole, new visitor centers were developed, pullouts added, maps and interpretive guides were produced. This was followed up with excellent marketing efforts that utilized diverse techniques to reach both national and international visitors. As one example, all byway promotional material was developed in 3 languages. Articles on the Creole began to appear routinely in national and international magazines, particularly those focused on nature based attractions. With these efforts, visitations dramatically increased. The organization continues to actively market and track the results. They can demonstrate to their local businesses almost on a dollar for dollar basis the positive increases in visitation and sales due to those marketing efforts.

Community Services and Amenities : Byways help to improve community and traveler facilities like rest areas, gateway centers, interpretive sites, vista pullouts, and way finding signage.

Logan Canyon’s (Utah) Corridor Management Plan recognized the need for interpretive information and other amenities to guide and service the thousands of visitors who tour the Canyon each year. The spectacular scenery engaged the travelers, but there was little information on the ecological and social history of what was being viewed. The organization put together a partnership team from both the public and private sector to develop and implement needed improvements. That package included way finding signage, eleven interpretive panels, 4 pullouts, additional restrooms, hiking trails, and a detailed route and historical brochure guide. The successful planning and community involvement for this project led to strong community support for a 1% restaurant tax to help fund this and future byway improvements.

Visitor Management: Byways help to coordinate the distribution of visitors throughout the corridor and help manage potential visitor impacts.

Acadia National Byway’s (Bar Harbor, Maine) major attraction is the scenic National Park by the same name. Acadia Park receives 3-4 million visitors annually on a small island area of only several square miles. The byway and their major partners have implemented several actions to help manage visitor impacts. Among those, a major success was the substantial reduction in island auto trips by instituting a transit shuttle. This effort was led by a park and byway partner, Friends of Acadia, with major financial support from L.L. Bean.

Roadway Enhancements: Byways work to improve the road’s character, scenic quality, and safety.

The Historic Columbia River Highway in Oregon is among the nation’s first scenic byways. Initially constructed in the teens, it was designed to showcase the region’s natural beauty as the road winds above the Columbia River providing visitors unparalleled views of the scenic gorge. Over time portions of the road had to be closed to travel access due to safety concerns and rehabilitation needs. In the 1990s, the byway began to implement several major restoration and enhancement projects for this scenic and historic road. In one project alone, over 12 million dollars of state, federal, and private funds were expended in constructing multi use trails, restoration of the Mosier tunnel, creating 2 new scenic pullouts, and installing 39 interpretive panels. And all of this was accomplished while maintaining the integrity of historic aspects of the road as well as landscape ecology.

Resource Stewardship: Byways offer an effective way to cultivate a greater appreciation for the region’s natural and cultural resources.

The San Juan Skyway in western Colorado is often described as one of the most scenic drives in America. But it offers equal attractions from all six intrinsic qualities. Two examples showcase its stewardship of historical resources. One byway project produced a 30 minute award winning PBS video and multimedia education package that chronicled the history and stories of the rugged individuals who lived and worked in the region. The curriculum guide and set of web site historical resources was well received and used by Colorado’s public schools as well as the general public. The successful project became a prototype for featuring other resources along Colorado Byways and could become a model for featuring byway resources throughout the US.

Another project focused on preserving the historic mining and railroad sites of the San Juan. A $39,000 preservation planning effort, funded with NSB funds, resulted in the preservation of 13 endangered sites along with 3,000 acres of historical landscape. The estimated value of the preserved sites was over 6 million dollars; pretty significant return on investment. As importantly, the project raised visibility of other endangered sites, helped stimulate appreciation and broad based support, and brought other state and national groups to the table to help continue future efforts.

Partnerships: A key factor in the success of these byway projects was forming strong partnerships. Byways and their diverse resources bring together a diverse group of people, organizations and agencies to work together toward common goals. This helps leverage economic capital and helps generate social capital within the local communities.

Balance: These examples also serve to illustrate byway efforts in balancing between promoting, enhancing, and preserving resources. One can sense that this range of benefits has appeal to different sets of the community and thus serves to enlist support from those different community segments.

Diversity of Byways: Byways across America are each unique yet share some common patterns. Some of the variable patterns include corridor length, organization type (see Table 1), resource complexity, and land tenure. For example, land ownership patterns along a western state byway may be 50-70% public lands; in other parts of the country byways may be entirely on private lands. One byway in South Carolina (Ashley River Road) is only 6 miles long while the Great River Road across several states has over 3,000 miles. Most byways corridors range between 50 and 150 miles in length. Longer byways can traverse through multiple communities, counties, and even states with variable land ownership and resource variety adding complex challenges to their planning efforts. Table 1 identifies a mix of organizational type but most include a local byway group as a component. Even public lands byways, where a governmental agency may have provided the initial impetus for designation, are evolving to include strong community support group to help insure byway and community connections.

Table 1: NSB Byway Organization Types

Byways also share common traits including pride of recognition, adopted plans, and multiple resources, partners, and projects , All NSB byways are proud of their national recognition. I have observed byways using this “recognition factor” in creative ways ranging from fashioning more appreciation for the resources to providing greater access to funding opportunities and political power. While byways are guided by the vision and goals of the corridor management plan they are very action oriented and focused on developing projects and programs that produce enhancements. It’s not uncommon for byway groups to have 4-5 projects in various stages of development. How do these largely volunteer groups achieve this level of activity? My response is they are successful in securing support from multiple partners because all those partners are motivated and passionate about the resource.

Distinctions in Byway planning: Traditional community planning and byway planning have some distinctions. The spatial scale for one; community planning is directed at jurisdictions; byways along corridors. Community planning is part of the formal institution of government. As noted in Table 1, many byway groups are not for profits with an organized but less formal structure and certainly have no governmental authority. While some byways may influence governmental policy most are oriented toward project development. And byways have no regulatory powers. They implement their projects and programs with education, incentives and working partnerships.

Marketing: A couple of other distinctions in byway planning are worth noting. They involve the special contributions of marketing and interpretation. Those two subjects/skills are rarely pronounced, and sometimes not present, in traditional planning. Marketing, a required activity in corridor management, brings different expertise, tools, and techniques to the planning table. As importantly, it brings different perspectives. In traditional community planning the scope and focus is internal; that is we, the collective community, are looking inside our boundaries to assess needs and preferences. In byway planning, the planning group has to reflect from an external perspective. They have to ask how “others view them ”. How do others view the community, the byway corridor and its assets? That external perspective required by marketing assessment brings a different and valuable way to thinking about community.

Interpretation: Before we can market, the experts tell us we must first have a “product”. This is where interpretation comes in. Stories become the product. Byway corridors can have a rich collection of scenic, natural, historical or cultural resources but unless those sites provide the visitor with accessible and compelling stories the product isn’t experienced. In assessing these multiple resources, byway planners have to bring the knowledge and expertise of historians, landscape architects and ecologists, wildlife biologist, geologists and others including interpretive specialist to the table. Planners are well accustomed to seeking assistance from multi-disciplines. The distinction in the byway context might be the “experts” are asked to think beyond patterns and trends. Byways ask those resource specialist to help them extract meaning and stories about interrelationships. Interpretation’s central tasks of revealing and relating resource meaning in stories can be useful to planning in general and is essential for byway planning.

Both byways and traditional community planning begin with inventory phases. In community planning, the concern is with the patterns and trends found in those inventories and how that weighs on possible alternatives for the future. In byway planning, another concern is in capturing relationships and the meanings about resources and what that suggests about community’s genius loci or sense of place.

Similarities in Success: There are also similarities between community and byway planning. From my observation, this is particularly true when comparing cases about successful planning efforts. For example, for several years now, I have used the book, Balancing Nature and Commerce in Gateway Communities (10), to introduce planning students to successful rural planning. The author’s review planning efforts in 40 rural communities and their final chapter summarizes a number of common lessons across those cases.

Successful rural planning: The authors contend the common patterns of successful planning in those 40 rural communities include:

• Develop a strong vision for the future;
• Inventory Local Resources;
• Build plans around the enhancement of natural and cultural assets;
• Use education, incentives, & voluntary initiatives, not just regulations;
• Cooperate with resource managers for mutual benefit;
• Consider aesthetics as well as ecology and economics.

As an aside, I would note that a new book on urban planning cases featured at this conference; Making Places Special (5) also identifies similar traits of successful planning in urban areas. In particular, the book’s cases emphasize the importance of asset based planning.

Successful byway planning: Many of those same lessons from rural planning also show up in examples of successful byway planning. In 2001, National Scenic Byway’s Resource Center partnered with AASHTO to sponsor an awards program for Best Practices of Scenic Byways. The program attracted over 40 applications from 29 states. The publication of case studies (1) featuring the award winners and nominees identified important “lessons learned” from project planning. The list included:

• Construct a compelling story & vision from the resource inventory;
• Create an inclusive framework early in the planning process;
• Develop incentives for being at the table;
• Exercise creativity in marketing and visualization
• Maintain a strong focus on enhancements & interpretation
• Balance competing goals of promotion and preservation
• Give equal attention to big picture and design details and
• Enlist partners who are motivated by a passion for the resources.

While a little different than the rural planning lessons, note the similar focus on resources, the use of incentives, and implementing with partnerships.

Comparing the two sets of successful planning examples, I identify the following core similarities:

• knowledge of resources;
• motivated by appreciation of assets;
• guided by plan but action oriented;
• effective use of incentives; and
• implementation through partnerships.

Both rural and byway planning examples identify resource knowledge as a major building block. For me, that foundation for “resource magic” is a crucial one. The knowledge of resources derived initially from the inventory, and enhanced through interpretation, produces a greater community awareness and appreciation for the resource. That increased visibility can bring a more diverse and committed set of partners to the table to plan and implement projects that promote and preserve the assets. It’s been my observation that this process is cyclic and with each new iteration, resource knowledge, awareness, and participation expands.

Conclusion: These remarks set out to examine 3 things; an overview of the byway program, contributions of byway efforts, and special features of byway planning.

The National Scenic Byway Program, including its state counterparts, brings important policy attention to the special natural, cultural, and heritage assets of travel corridors throughout America. The voluntary and incentive driven program serves that policy well and the growth in national and state scenic byways efforts indicates a measure of success.

Local and regional scenic byways provide many small but important economic contributions to their host communities. Stimulated by available NSB grant funds, local byways have planned and implemented over 1200 projects that have contributed direct benefits. Those contributions have ranged from “brick and mortar” improvements like visitor centers to promotional marketing and improved visitor services, both of which contribute to the tourism economy. Byways also provide social benefits. Their planning and interpretive efforts provide increased awareness and appreciation of community assets. And byway partnerships improve local capacity to preserve those assets.

Byway success in planning for improved visitor services, community amenities, and protective stewardship can be credited to their focus on the “right side of the what’s right or wrong question”. Byways focus on the resource or asset side. It’s the asset based approach to planning that inspires extraordinary efforts of citizen volunteers and support from community and agency decision- makers. It’s the love of the resource that brings capable partners to the table. It’s the meaningful stories about the interrelationships of those resources that enhance community recognition, pride, and sense of place. It’s the showcasing and interpretation of resources that enrich the visitor experience.

It’s also noteworthy to remember Aldo Leopold’s instruction about the sequence of resource conservation (12): first comes awareness and recognition, then comes appreciation and love, and then comes stewardship and protection. Byway contributions to the front end of that sequence should pay stewardship dividends for rural communities in the future.

1. American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) & America’s Byway Resource Center (ABRC), The Road Beckons: Best Practices for Byways, 2002.

2. America’s Byways Online: http//www.byways.org

3. America’s Byway Resource Center, Making the Grassroots Grow: Building and Maintaining Effective Byway Organizations, 2003.

4. Byway Resource Center and National Scenic Byway Program, Lessons from the Road, 2000.

5. Bunnell, Gene. Making Places Special: Stories of Real Places Made Better by Planning, APA Press, 2002.

6. Federal Highway Administration, USDOT, Scenic Byways, Pub # FHWA-DF-88-004,July 1988.

7. Federal Highway Administration, USDOT, National Scenic Byways Study, Jan, 1991.

8. Federal Register, FHWA Docket 95-15, National Scenic Byways Program, 5/18/1995.

9. Federal Highway Administration, USDOT, Community Guide to Planning and Managing a Scenic Byway, 1997.

10. Howe, Jim, Ed McMahon, and Luther Propst. Balancing Nature and Commerce in Gateway Communities, Island Press, 1997.

11. National Scenic Byways Program. Byway Beginnings: Understanding , Inventorying, and Evaluating a Byway’s Intrinsic Qualities, Federal Highway Administration and National Park Service, 1999.

12. Leopold, Aldo. A Sand County Almanac, Oxford Press, 1949.

Author and Copyright Information

William J. Kelley

Bill is a Professor of Urban and Regional Planning at Eastern Washington University in Spokane. With over 25 years of teaching, research, and practice, he has taught across the curriculum, directed innumerable plans and studies, and served on community, state, and professional boards. Throughout his experience he has sought to strengthen bridges between academic and professional planning and to improve connections between educative and experiential knowledge for his students. Currently, Kelley ‘s on sabbatical conducting a study for the national scenic byway program focused on planning for the long term integrity of scenic byways. The opinions expressed in this paper are strictly his own.