Communities Over Highways Playbook

A starting guide for freeway fighters

For community organizers working to stop highway expansion or reconnect neighborhoods divided by highways.

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A highway harms your community. Now what?

Countless communities across the United States are split in half by highways. When they’re built through communities, highways become barriers, dividing and polluting cities, towns, and neighborhoods.

Many people become freeway fighters when they decide their community is better off without a big road. Maybe a plan to expand or extend a highway spurs them to action. Maybe an existing highway has reached the end of its life and there’s an opportunity to reexamine whether it is needed.

This playbook is for early-stage community organizers seeking to protect their communities from highway expansion, or to reconnect communities divided by highways. It’s a starting point for understanding the bureaucratic and legal process that guides highway building and the organizing strategies that can shape freeway fights, with case studies from urban and rural campaigns. It is not a comprehensive guide to the political context and laws of every state.

Some material is more relevant to fighting expansion, some to reconnecting communities, and there’s often significant overlap. Throughout, the playbook will help you make the case for a positive vision: highways have many harmful effects you’ll want to emphasize, but a vision that leaves your community stronger is what wins hearts and minds.

1. Are You an Organizer?

If you have ever rallied everyone to get out of the house to school or an event, you are an organizer. If you have ever gotten a group to agree on a restaurant or what’s for dinner, you are an organizer. We are all called upon at one time or another to organize others to action.

Can you organize to stop or remove a highway? We’re not going to sugarcoat this: it will be hard. But it has been done before by people like you.

We start with organizing because it is the asymmetric strategy that can overcome the monetary and institutional power historically behind highway expansion. Departments of Transportation have access to hundreds of millions of dollars to push and develop projects. You need to find another way to counter these resources.

Organizing has been defined as “using what you have to get what you want”: working with others to identify messaging, strategy, and tactics that tap into the latent power in the community to move toward a common vision.

Organizing helps people realize their own agency in the community, moving them from:

Organizing, therefore, is about relationships.

Organizing is about equipping people with the power they need to change their world. It is about relationships… It is not about marketing, it is not about sales, it is not about crowds. It is about commitment to one another.

Marshall Ganz

This playbook will walk you through developing a movement and campaign strategy, the key moments in fighting a highway project, and tactics that people like you have used. It isn’t the last word, but each section links to resources so you can go deeper.

2. Making the Case for Your Movement

One of the most important first steps is to define the vision and values of your movement, center it in community values, and explain the choice confronting the community. This is called public narrative, and it has three elements:

• Story of self: why you are engaged.
• Story of us: how the community has confronted similar challenges, and why it must confront this one.
• Story of now: that the community, working together, can build a better future. It references your strategy (your campaign plan) and includes a call to action: how an individual can have agency within the broader movement.

We owe a debt here to Marshall Ganz, and encourage you to learn more about him and public narrative.

But let’s start with you. Why are you engaged in freeway fighting, and why should others join you? Answering this question, sharing it, and learning about others’ vision and values is the starting point for building a team, a movement, and coalitions.

Story of Self

A Story of Self is a personal narrative that communicates who you are, the values that drive you, and the choices that shaped you. It centers on “choice points” (moments of challenge, decision, and outcome) that explain your motivations and build empathy and trust.

As you develop your Story of Self, reflect on these questions:

1. Why am I called to this movement?
2. Why did I decide to tackle this specific injustice or problem and work on this organizing effort?
3. What values move me to act? Have these values always been important to me? If not, when did that change?
4. How might these values inspire others to similar action? What stories from my own life, about specific people or events, would show rather than tell how I learned or acted on those values?

Your story, and all of your messaging, should appeal to the heart as well as the head. It’s common to lead with the analytical, data-driven reasons highways are bad for health, safety, the environment, and the economy. But politics runs on emotion, not logic. Include the personal reasons that motivate you, like the effect of a highway on family, friends, or neighbors you saw harmed by past choices.

Then try it out. Set up one-on-one meetings with other community members, draw out their story of self (everyone has one), and share your own. These conversations are crucial. Without others, you are a gadfly. With others, you are part of a movement.

The Story of Us: Establishing a Vision and Shared Values

What is the shared vision for your community if the movement succeeds? A vision can describe physical changes (no expansion of I-35, or I-81 through the city replaced by a boulevard), but ideally it is outcomes-based as well. Here are the visions of two contemporary freeway fighting movements:

Both movements oppose highway expansion, but both visions encompass more than a transportation decision. For Stop TxDOT I-45, it’s about a safer, healthier, more joyful community. For Oklahomans for Responsible Transportation, it’s about protecting homes and nature, and stewardship for future generations.

Your vision doesn’t need to be static. It may start with an individual or a core group, but establish a dialogue with the broader community early and incorporate the concerns and dreams you hear. That way you set a common goal without prescribing exact solutions, and a broad vision helps people see themselves as part of the movement.

Root your vision in a set of shared values. Think of them as your movement’s business card: they should convey in a word or two who you are and what you stand for. Ideally, they’re reflected in your movement’s name.

The Story of Now

You know why you are engaged, and you’re working with others. What is the plan? When you ask people to join, what is the specific ask?

People have to make choices with their time. Even if they share your values and goals, they need to know there’s a strategy reasonably calculated to win. At the start, your ask may be as simple as “can we work together on this?” But once you have a core group of committed people, it’s time to sit down together and write a campaign plan.

3. Writing a Campaign Plan

A campaign is a series of linked tactics to achieve an objective. If one phone call or letter could solve the problems you see, you wouldn’t be here. If the logic of your position hasn’t swayed decision makers or the public on its own, a campaign is required. Campaigns may start with one theory of change, but they’re also about building the collective capacity to adapt to changing circumstances and find a new path to your objectives.

A campaign can also be a series of nested campaigns. In the civil rights movement of the 1960s, the overriding objective was establishing civil rights in federal law. The Selma march and the Montgomery bus boycott were nested campaigns that won real change while building power and momentum toward the ultimate goal.

In a freeway fight where the ultimate decision rests with the legislature, nested campaigns might include driving comments on an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), winning over a city council, or securing a legal pause. Each is an opportunity to build power by winning more supporters, and each needs its own plan.

When putting together a plan, consider these ten elements:

1. Who are your people, and what do they want?

Who are the people in your community you’re committed to working with? What challenges do they face, and what kind of change do they need? The answers come not from an academic study but from talking to people about their lived experience. Ultimately, ask: “How can I enable them to use their resources in new ways to develop the power and capacity they need to accomplish their goals?” This is how you start the outreach to understand community concerns, discover work already under way, and find people to plan with.

2. What are the goals of the plan?

Goals should speak to both a longer-term vision (e.g., replace the highway with a true community vision) and a specific, measurable outcome. This is where your team identifies interim and long-term goals, and the nested campaigns within the broader campaign.

Include goals for organizational and personal growth, too. Whether or not the plan succeeds, you should be building a base for further action. Personal goals might include new relationships or skills. Organizational goals might include new volunteers, more diverse leadership, or new coalition partners.

We urge your core group to adopt the “snowflake model” of organizing. Hierarchical structures can lead to burnout and low engagement. In the snowflake model, leadership is distributed among multiple people, each empowered to act in their own area, defined geographically (by neighborhood or region), thematically (outreach, digital communications, technical assistance), or another way. The goal isn’t just to recruit followers to do work, but to develop leaders who develop further leaders, expanding outward like a snowflake.

3. Who has the power to give you what you want?

Are there specific people who must act for you to achieve your goals? Who are they, and what must they do? Be specific. Distinguish between those who influence policy and those who actually have decision-making authority. You want the first as allies, but the decision makers are your ultimate target.

Decision makers vary by state, and alongside formal processes there are informal ones that determine who has the authority to give you what you want. See How Do Highway Plans Get Made? below.

4. What are the values driving your plan?

Clearly identified values shape your campaign message and how you do your work. They also build a bridge to the next stage: specific issues and opportunities change, but values endure.

5. What is your theory of change?

Campaigns are about using what you have to win the goals you seek. A clear theory of how to get from here to there makes it easier to attract others to your cause. For example:

By demonstrating broad local opposition we will win local elected officials and influencers to our cause, ultimately convincing the legislature to abandon the project.

6. Campaign narrative

What story will you tell others about the plan? What are the key talking points? Is there a memorable slogan? Your story should illustrate your vision, values, and theory of change, as well as the outcome you want. Think about how it would be told to a reporter, on social media, or to a potential partner or volunteer. Is it easy to remember and repeat? Does it strike an emotional chord?

Keep it to a few paragraphs. This is where the story of us and the story of now come in.

7. Allies and opponents

Who might actively partner with you? Are there influencers who would support your cause, or a particular demographic you can or should reach? Will there be an active opponent, or people with reservations? Can you shape your message to win them over, soften their opposition, or make them less persuasive to people who start out neutral?

You probably can’t win everybody. You want to activate your supporters and persuade the undecided, so opponents understand that the community wants a different course. You’re on the far left of the spectrum below, the protagonists. You likely won’t change the minds of committed opponents. How do you move everyone else closer to you?

Broad coalitions are more effective at convincing decision makers, and relationships are key to building them. Find out who is aligned with your efforts and who else they could bring on board. What groups or institutions will be directly affected? Are there state or regional organizations that might support you? When you first reach out, set up a conversation and get to know each other before asking anyone to join your coalition.

Reasons others have opposed highway expansion or supported reconnecting communities:

• Protecting the environment
• Racial justice
• Responsible government spending
• Public health and air quality
• Protecting farmland
• Preserving and/or building homes
• Protecting private property
• Promoting walking, biking, and transit
• Community development
• Supporting local businesses
• Preserving parks and green spaces

8. Tactics and timeline

Identify the specific actions you’ll take and when. It’s hard to plan tactics more than 3–6 months out, and experience may show you need new ones. Your first goal might simply be gathering like-minded community members to develop tactics together, in which case list some potential tactics and treat the plan as a living document.

Keep your personal and organizational goals in mind: win or lose, you want to create new leaders and community will to make change. Choose tactics that engage others and are even fun. And definitely include a thank-you party for everyone who joined the campaign, no matter the outcome. See Tactics for Freeway Fighting for ideas.

9. Budget

Do you need a budget? If so, how much, and how will you raise it?

10. Volunteer recruitment and stewardship

Do you need volunteers? How will you recruit and engage them?

Further resources

• The Sierra Club Grassroots Organizing Training Manual
• The Sierra Club Movement Organizing Manual

4. How Do Highway Plans Get Made?

Who decides whether a highway gets built, expanded, or removed?

Highway plans are typically formulated well before they receive public scrutiny. Many highways being built today were the gleam in a transportation planner’s eye decades ago. Since then, Departments of Transportation, state legislators, transportation commissions, local elected officials, Metropolitan Planning Organizations, highway contractors, affected businesses, and construction trade unions have been building support for the project.

Despite the flood of money for highway expansion, the main reason a given project hasn’t been built yet is that other projects are in line ahead of it. Proponents know that if they raise enough money, they can move further up the wish list. In fact, most road-building debates in the halls of power center on which project comes next, not on whether a project makes sense in the first place.

That makes it hard to identify who has the power to give you what you want, and states differ both legally and practically in how final decisions are made. You may rightly wonder whether the bureaucratic maze is intentional, shielding projects from real public scrutiny. But regardless of the specific state process, there are elected officials at the top with the formal or informal power to direct agencies to reverse their decisions. Address the agency processes below on their own terms, but also treat them as power-building opportunities to influence the ultimate political decision makers.

Start at the top

Highway projects are usually undertaken by a state Department of Transportation. Staff and administrators make lower-level decisions, but authority ultimately rests with the Secretary of Transportation (sometimes under another title), who answers to the Governor. The State Legislature controls funding.

• Some legislatures directly fund specific projects with line-item appropriations, leaving the DOT no discretion.
• Others delegate decisions to the DOT director, or to a Transportation Commission of appointed members.
• Some transportation commissions actually set budgets and priorities (e.g., Texas, Colorado, New Mexico).
• Others focus on long-range planning, policy advice, or tolling authority rather than day-to-day agency operations (e.g., Washington).

5. Understanding the Highway Building Process

Building a highway in the United States is a long, multi-stage process involving government agencies, engineers, environmental specialists, contractors, and local communities. The exact process varies by state and project, but major projects generally follow common steps. For people seeking to stop or change a project, the key point is this: opportunities to influence it occur throughout the process, and generally narrow as the project moves toward construction.

A highway project becomes increasingly difficult to change as it progresses:

1. Planning
2. Funding
3. Purpose & Need
4. Environmental Review
5. Preferred Alternative
6. Final Design
7. Land Acquisition
8. Permits / Approvals
9. Construction

1. Planning and Funding: Start Organizing Early

The process begins when transportation agencies identify a need, such as reducing congestion or improving capacity.

In most of the U.S., metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) develop regional plans that feed into statewide long-range transportation plans. These outline specific projects the MPO and state DOT would like to build, and making it onto the MPO list is required for federal funding. Projects may also appear in the State Transportation Improvement Program (STIP), which identifies projects being considered or funded through federal, state, or local programs.

In the nearer term, an MPO’s Transportation Improvement Program (TIP) and the state’s STIP allocate federal funds to projects for at least the next four years. Highway projects that appear in these plans should be considered imminent and will likely move into a study phase for approval.

Long-range plans and TIPs help you forecast future projects in your neighborhood and region. It’s possible to amend these plans and stop projects while they’re still nascent and haven’t built momentum.

While the decision is made at the state level, local decision makers coming out against an expansion, or for a reconnecting communities project, is still incredibly useful. Mayors, county officials, and city councilors on your side can use their platforms and power to help convince decision makers at the state or MPO level.

2. The Environmental Review Process: Influence What Gets Studied

Once a project receives federal funding (as most highway projects do), its approval is governed by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which requires the agency to consider the project’s impact on the environment, including the human environment. Your state probably has its own equivalent. The agency will combine federal and state review, but it’s worth researching whether your state’s requirements are more favorable to your goals.

Agencies are legally required to follow the NEPA process, but NEPA does not require that a project with impacts be abandoned. As long as the agency has checked NEPA’s boxes, it can proceed. Highway agencies have become adept at using the process to reach the result they want, so early attention is essential.

NEPA is also one of the main avenues for legal challenge. Challenges are usually procedural (the agency didn’t follow the process correctly). Incorrect designations of Categorical Exclusions and Environmental Assessments (see below) can also be challenged.

Purpose and Need

Environmental and engineering studies generally begin with a Purpose and Need statement defining what the project is supposed to accomplish. If it’s narrowly focused, say, solely on increasing highway capacity, it can limit the alternatives considered later.

Environmental Review Documents

Once scope is defined, the agency prepares its environmental review documents. Depending on potential impacts, a project may receive:

• Categorical Exclusion (CE): essentially exempts the project from environmental review, because the agency doesn’t believe it will have an impact.
• Environmental Assessment (EA): a shorter review for projects the agency doesn’t believe will have a significant impact.
• Environmental Impact Statement (EIS): a full review for projects with significant impacts.

Public Comment Periods

For projects requiring an EIS, review can take several years. Agencies may hold public meetings, publish draft documents, and request public comments.

An environmental review generally evaluates a project’s impacts; completing it usually doesn’t mean those impacts must be eliminated. Its purpose is usually to inform decision makers, not compel a result. State environmental statutes may differ, so review yours.

3. Selection and Design: Push for Changes Before Plans Are Final

After environmental review, the agency selects a preferred alternative and develops increasingly detailed plans for the roadway, bridges, interchanges, drainage, signs, and lighting.

4. Right-of-Way Acquisition: Get Legal and Community Support

The government must obtain the land needed for construction, through negotiated purchases or, where legally authorized, eminent domain. This stage can create additional opportunities to question impacts and advocate for changes, though stopping the whole project may become harder once land acquisition is substantially under way.

5. Permits, Approvals, and Contracting: Last Major Opportunities Before Construction

Before construction, the project must receive required approvals and permits. Agencies generally put construction out for competitive bidding and select a contractor under applicable procurement rules.

6. Construction: Monitor Compliance

Construction usually begins with clearing land, relocating utilities, and preparing the site, followed by excavation and grading, drainage and bridges, the road foundation, and finally pavement.

Summary: Timing Your Opposition

The earlier stages are generally the most important for people who want to stop or substantially change a highway. The strongest strategy is usually to begin organizing before major decisions are finalized, identify every formal opportunity for public participation, and keep monitoring the project through environmental review, funding, approvals, and construction. Because deadlines and legal rights vary by state and project, anyone considering a formal challenge should verify procedures and deadlines with the relevant agency or a qualified attorney.

Every step is also an organizing opportunity to build public awareness and show the ultimate decision makers, the governor and legislature, that it would be politically wise to pull the plug on funding or construction. Agencies can be quite impervious to criticism. Elected officials who face the voters may see the project differently with enough public opposition.

Further resources

• A Citizen’s Guide to the National Environmental Policy Act
• Building Roads to a Just and Equitable Future (New York University School of Law)
• Litigation: An Underused Tool in Transportation Advocacy (The Funders Network)

6. Tactics for Freeway Fighting

Now that you understand organizing, campaigns, and the highway-building timeline, what actions can you take? Here are tactics contemporary freeway fighting groups across the country have used to advance their goals. Use them as inspiration for your own campaign.

7. Frequently Asked Questions

Answers to the questions you’ll ask, and hear, most often in a freeway fight: