Public Works Management & Policy

Situated in a context of rapid technological innovation, coupled with federal and state efforts to foster sustainability, the continued growth of electric vehicle adoption presents new challenges concerning the capacity of existing transportation infrastructure. This study explores the diffusion, adoption, and prospects for adoption of a new technology: battery electric vehicles within local government fleets. Coupling archival data of municipal characteristics with an original survey of local government officials, this study examines which social, economic, and technological factors shape governmental pursuit of this technology within one culturally dynamic state. A supply-side, top-down framework for installing supportive infrastructure takes a central place in our consideration as the outcomes of that process have led to implementation of key charging stations with geographic significance. Results of our analysis reveal broad interest, though with expressed hesitance, in electrifying municipal vehicle fleets. While the policy diffusion literature places a premium on geographic proximity, municipalities reflecting the strongest prospects for fleet electrification are located within areas with greater public support, investment in capital infrastructure, and higher electric vehicle adoption rates.

This study examines whether metropolitan planning organizations’ (MPOs) planning conformity, which is the degree to which regional transportation planning language aligns with federal air-quality requirements, is associated with regional attainment of the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS). MPOs operate at the intersection of transportation and environmental regulation, coordinating across multiple governments to address cross-jurisdictional air pollution. We measure planning conformity using a content analysis that combines the Institutional Grammar framework with automated text analysis (natural language processing) to compare MPO transportation plans with relevant federal regulatory language. Using a sample of 84 MPOs in U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Regions 1–3, we estimate the relationship between planning conformity and 2023 county-level attainment status. Results indicate that higher planning conformity is associated with higher odds of NAAQS attainment, net of institutional, infrastructure, and state-level controls.

While prior literature has explored how different participation modalities can align with pre-specified goals in public involvement programs, research is needed on how configurations of participation modalities can address informational goals that are unique to PPPs. This study addresses this need by integrating insights from the literatures on PPPs and on public involvement to develop a theoretical framework. This study underscores the importance of ensuring public consultation before design options are finalized and emphasizes the potential of virtual public involvement (VPI) tools to educate citizens and gain their perspectives on PPPs. Emerging and established tools in digital engagement thus offer great promise for meeting the informational needs of PPPs, yet traditional in-person consultations remain essential for achieving the community agreement needed to align projects with local preferences. VPI tools can also improve citizen exposure to project components, yet many present more opportunities for conveying technical details than financial ones.

Rule settings focusing on the sustainability of public-private partnership (PPP) infrastructure projects will require distinguished steering strategies at the planning stages to foster. Based on Elinor Ostrom’s institutional analysis and development (IAD) framework, this paper examines the extent to which formal rules prescribe environmental and social sustainability steering strategies in PPP infrastructure projects (sustainable PPP) in Nigeria. We analyse qualitative data from 18 semi-structured interviews and a review of PPP legal documents. The empirical focus is on two jurisdictional governments in Nigeria: the Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN) and the Lagos State Government (LSG). The findings indicate that sustainability-relevant PPP formal rules exist in four categories of legal frameworks. Moreover, they prescribe and cover only parts of the required sustainable PPP steering strategies. Additionally, there is an inadequate mix of institutional relations between these legal frameworks and the sustainability steering strategies, leading to gaps that hinder the adoption of sustainable PPP practices and have policy implications.

As states and regions continue to face challenges related to watershed conservation, watershed stakeholders have become more dependent on collaborative partnerships to solve complex water conservation and environmental problems. These collaborative partnerships often include programs of payments for water-based ecosystem services (PWES). PWES’s are arrangements funded by government or private parties where benefits are offered to ecosystem services providers in exchange for their work on protecting the watershed environment. This paper explores collaborative partnerships of PWES’s in the United States with an emphasis on determining the types of governance structures used by the collaboratives. The study finds that PWES’s primarily engage in interagency and cross-sector governance practices, and less so with grassroots governance practices. Understanding the strengths and weaknesses of collaborative partnerships of these programs through the lens of governance structure will enhance local and regional organizations’ abilities to provide the best approach for addressing a particular watershed goal.