Planning and Environment Linkages (PEL) represents a collaborative and integrated approach to transportation decision-making that considers environmental, community, and economic goals early in the transportation planning process. PEL is applicable to a wide variety of contexts including programmatic and project-level planning. At the project level it can be used to inform and streamline environmental review by transitioning information, analysis, and products developed during a PEL study into a subsequent NEPA process.
ODOT is continuing to develop guidance for when and how to incorporate PEL into the agency's transportation planning processes. Practical guidance for linking planning and NEPA at the project level using ODOT's PEL Questionnaire can be found on this page along with links to additional PEL resources.