Value pricing and public outreach: Minnesota's lessons learned

The feasibility and worth of value pricing transportation projects are well documented, but gaining approval for projects has been thwarted by an inability to sell the public and key stakeholders on the concept. Value pricing advocates in Minnesota struggled with this challenge for more than a decade. After several Minnesota value pricing projects failed because of a lack of public support, Minnesota supporters implemented a revised public outreach strategy in 2001. With the use of that strategy, they met with success in 2003 in the approval of the I-394 MnPass project, which will be implemented in spring 2005. The communications-related lessons learned in Minnesota during the decade-long case study may be instructive for others struggling to gain approval for their own projects.