Review of Strategies for Enabling Collaboration between Transportation Agencies and Native American Tribes

Abstract

As traffic volumes increase across the nation, transportation projects also increase. With that increase comes the responsibility of expanding the current roadway system while protecting the social and cultural values of each community affected by such expansion. One of the greatest concerns in social and cultural preservation comes from tribal entities. The necessity of advancing the transportation network while ensuring agreement with tribal governments on transportation projects has proved difficult, as recurring issues can lead to difficulty in project execution. However, several transportation agencies have overcome geographical, political, institutional, and cultural barriers to provide transportation networks crossing tribal lands. Across the transportation sector, steps have been taken to alleviate common issues on such projects in the form of programs for the establishment of government-to-government relationships and the implementation of projects. Government-to-government relationships are crucial for the success of transportation improvements, whether state or tribal. Cooperation on transportation issues is affected by complex issues such as tribal sovereignty, intergovernmental agreements, jurisdiction, regional planning efforts, right-of-way acquisition, funding, and maintenance. Similarly, planning, design, and implementation of transportation projects require collaboration among tribal, federal, and state agencies. This paper identifies and categorizes issues surrounding transportation projects affected by–-or of interest to–-tribal communities, and initiatives taken to alleviate issues. It also defines steps for future research in order to refine issues as they are identified in the paper and context-specific strategies implemented to alleviate each issue.