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  • Taking it to the Street: Beyond the Traditional Meeting

    The Florida Department of Transportation has been a proponent of smaller, targeted methods for obtaining public input and building relationships with the community. These methods have been used to compliment traditional meeting practices. They include targeted small group meetings, drive-up open houses set up in tents, and established public outreach offices. These non-traditional methods directly engage the public at places and times convenient and comfortable to them.

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  • Partnerships with Rural School Systems to Maximize Input

    As part of the Southwest Georgia Interstate Study and the Connect Central Georgia Study, the Georgia Department of Transportation worked in partnership with county school systems to distribute and collect survey feedback from the community at-large. Packets of surveys were delivered to the office of each elementary, middle, and high school in each system, and were then sent home with students in order to reach parents. Parents could return hard copies of the surveys to the schools, by mail, email, or fax, or they could access an online version of the survey to provide feedback. GDOT also worked with area libraries to distribute surveys and encourage the public to access the web-basted survey via library computers to provide their feedback.​

  • Building Local Connections - Outreach through fairs and festivals

    As part of the Connect Central Georgia Study, the Georgia Department of Transportation set up study information booths at several community festivals to engage with area citizens, get the word out about the study, and expand reach to the community at large. At the festival, project newsletters were distributed, names were collected for the project mailing list, and citizens were asked to participate in a short survey about transportation needs and priorities in their community over the next 20+ years.

  • Creating an Environmental Stewardship Program through Working Groups

    The US 301 Waldorf Area Transportation Improvements Project has an abundance of both natural and social environmental features. This task was dedicated to establishing a new school of thought about a highway project - reaching out to the affected communities to determine what community resource-based environmental stewardship projects and programs they would like to see as a benefit to their community. Meetings were held with various stakeholders that included residents, environmental groups, local government agencies, federal agencies, and Maryland State Highway Administration (SHA). A list of recommendations for environmental stewardship opportunities and concerns were developed as a result of these meetings. A process for evaluating and ranking these potential opportunities (including projects and programs) was developed as well. While this effort is about the community resource aspect of environmental stewardship, a parallel Natural Resource Working Group is ongoing and the groups have worked together to reach common ground. 

     

  • What is new on the old road? Historic Highway Enews

    The Oregon Department of Transportation maintains a 1500 contact database to communicate project updates for the Historic Columbia River Highway and the Historic Highway State Trail.  ​

  • Outreach Program Eliminates Section 4(f) Concern

    For a project in Greenville, NC, we proposed connecting Stantonsburg Road in west Greenville (near the hospital and highway) to Tenth Street in east Greenville (near Uptown and East Carolina University). The project was funded by the City, ECU, the hospital, and NCDOT. We were sensitive to the nature of the community, as well as the difference in needs between the community and the funding partners. Most of the alternatives included widening Farmville Boulevard, a four-lane undivided road through a cohesive, minority neighborhood. The project team considered widening left, right, and symmetrically through the neighborhood, attempting to minimize the number of relocations. The public outreach plan included a citizen advisory committee, key leader interviews, and a series of small group meetings with the neighbors and adjacent businesses. Through these interactions, the project team worked through the potential alternatives and the specific needs and desires of the community. As a result of the input from the community, the City of Greenville decided to contribute additional relocation funds to provide a new area for the residents to relocate to as a unit if they chose to do so. At the end of the project, the residents signed a petition requesting that the City and NCDOT choose the alternative that relocated the most number of residents, so that they could remain a cohesive neighborhood in the new location. This petition provided the support necessary for FHWA to determine that this project would not have an adverse and disproportionate impact on the minority community.

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  • Florida MPO bestows Citizen Participation Award

    The Charlotte County-Punta Gorda, Florida MPO Awards a Citizen or Group who through their efforts have made significant and noteworthy contributions to transportation planning. A trophy is presented to the recipient at an MPO Board Meeting each year.

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  • Exploring New Technology: Results of the Oak Hill Parkway Pilot Virtual Open House

    The traditional methods of public engagement will always be an important part of the planning process, but discovering the effectiveness of emerging technologies in order to develop new best practices for public engagement is the charge of the future. The Oak Hill Parkway project in Austin, Texas, provided a unique opportunity to test a new and innovative method to engage the public. This pilot project tested the effectiveness of re-creating a traditional open house in a virtual or online setting in order to provide additional opportunities for engagement and to understand what role emerging technology will play in the engagement process. In order to replicate the experience of a traditional open house in a virtual setting, the research team developed a website, called a virtual open house (VOH). All of the materials presented at the May 23, 2013 Oak Hill Parkway traditional open house were presented to visitors of the virtual open house through concept videos and text. The concept videos featured visuals of schematics with voiceovers from project staff. Users were directed to the virtual open house through both traditional and online media coverage, as well as advertisements on Google and social media outlets such as Facebook and Twitter. Upon entry to the virtual open house, users were directed to watch an introduction video that explained the purpose of the VOH and directions on how to use it. Once registered, users were sent to an overview page, where background information on the project was provided. From there, users were able to choose any of the nine concepts (shown as thumbnails at the top of the page), watch the informative video, and click a thumbs-up or thumbs-down button depending on their feelings toward the concept. The VOH went live on May 23, the day the traditional open house was held, and was open until the close of the official comment period, 12 days later on June 3, 2013. During this period, there were two, 2-hour-long real-time chat sessions, where each of the nine concept videos and the overview page featured chat boxes that were staffed by an Oak Hill Parkway project representative. During the real-time chat sessions, visitors were able to provide comments, ask questions directly of Oak Hill Parkway project representatives, and receive answers in real time. During the remainder of the period that the virtual open house was live, users were able to provide comments and questions through a link to the Oak Hill Parkway project website. Researchers were able to gauge the effectiveness of the virtual open house by using Google and YouTube analytics to evaluate the attendance and quality of participation. To evaluate the attendance of the virtual open house, researchers tracked the number of visitors by day, which provided insight into how well attended the VOH was during the entire period it was live. In addition, researchers were able to evaluate how attendance changed during the real-time chat sessions as compared to the rest of the period the VOH was live, based on the measurement of how many pages within the virtual open house were viewed per hour for each day that the virtual open house was live. The analytical tools also provided researchers with the ability to gauge the quality of participation during the VOH. Researchers were able to measure the average amount of time that each user spent in the VOH per day in order to gain insight into not only how many visitors came through the door, but how long those visitors actively engaged with project materials while visiting. The average number of pages viewed per visitor provided researchers with an additional metric to gauge how effectively users interacted with project materials while visiting the virtual open house.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

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  • Building Connections in a Rural Community - Maysville, NC

    During the environmental phase of a roadway project in the small community of Maysville, North Carolina, the outreach team worked with the IGA Grocery Store to get information about the project out to the community and gather names for the project database. This was the only grocery store within 20 miles of Maysville, and therefore served many area residents. The team provided the checkout clerks a stack of newsletters to distribute. The Store Manager put a map of the study area on his office so that patrons could walk over and see the project alternatives. He also worked with the outreach team to position them inside the store, so that patrons had to walk by the table while they were shopping. ​

  • Baltimore Red Line – Empowering the Community

     

     The Red Line transit extension project was controversial in many communities due to a perception that the project would hurt the area. The outreach team used a variety of approaches to overcome this perception. The team hired community liaisons to educate residents along the corridor through local leaders who the community could relate to. Interactive public meetings were held to walk through display boards and video that demonstrated what the future alignment could look like. Neighborhood Resource Hubs were established through kits provided at area community centers and at libraries. Where appropriate, these kits were bilingual. A school age outreach component was developed, as well as an internship program that employs 18 interns each year to work on engineering and planning projects in support of the Red Line. This program was designed to both support the project and develop a workforce that could help educate families and build and foster relationships. 
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  • 3D Visualizations Help Public Consider Alternative

    NCDOT conducted a study to replace an S-shaped swing-span bridge over the Perquimans River in Hertford, NC. The existing bridge is eligible for the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP), and terminates in a NRHP historic district. Alternatives were considered that replaced the bridge with a similar-type facility, a higher fixed bridge on a similar alignment, and an alternative that avoided the historic district. A majority of the community was initially concerned about a higher bridge. Through the use of 3D photo renderings from multiple angles, the community was able to visualize the alternative which notably increased support for that alternative (which was eventually selected as the preferred alternative). To obtain appropriate high-resolution photographs, we contracted Sky Site to take photos from a low-flying helicopter and using an elevated camera from ground level.

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  • “Find Your Way Here” - Pop-Up Open House

    The Atlanta Regional Commission held a “pop-up” style open house in an empty storefront off of the main square in Decatur, Georgia on a Saturday afternoon.  The approach was designed to invoke an informal, fun and inviting atmosphere – an opportunity for local and regional residents to receive information, while also providing feedback on PLAN 204, the Regional Transportation Plan and a key element of metro Atlanta’s blueprint for accommodating growth. The outreach team found an empty space, contacted the manager, and reserved the space for free. The team used provocative signage with the message “Find Your Way Here”. The moniker was intentionally mysterious – no exact location, just a message so people would know something was going to be happening in the area and something that would generate social media buzz.  The approach was fun, creative, and “curiosity inspiring” marketing that would draw in street traffic. Materials were produced with simple, easy to see graphics and imagery. The main goal was approachability.​

  • Webinar: Lessons Learned with Public Engagement Toolkit Outreach

    A briefing was held via webinar to provide information and solicit input from public engagement practitioners across the nation on their experiences with public outreach.  The webinar had about 75 participants using a webinar broadcast for a visual presentation, coupled with audio via teleconference phone line.​

  • Successful Public Involvement on a Limited Budget through Online Media

    ​The Tri-Cities of Richland, Pasco and Kennewick is the fourth largest metropolitan area in Washington State with over 253,000 people. At the confluence of the Columbia and Snake Rivers, these communities are linked by three major bridges. With a growing population, congestion on the bridges in 2010 was increasing, prompting the funding of a regional study among the local agencies and the Legislature to look at all reasonable alternatives for a new Columbia River Crossing in the area.

     

    As a member of a team including H.W. Lochner Engineers and J-U-B Engineers, The Langdon Group was hired to manage the public involvement process. This posed the significant challenge of reaching and effectively engaging four distinct communities (including the City of West Richland) to guide a process of determining 2-3 potential crossing locations for further study, from an initial list of 10. The geographically diverse region coupled with a very limited public involvement budget helped determine that online media would play a key role in the process.

    In April 2010, our team launched a project website, Twitter page, Constant Contact E-Newsletter and online survey to provide the community with up-to-date information and receive valuable public input.

    Our strategy was to utilize the local media and existing stakeholder email databases as a means to drive the public to the website. The plan worked— In response to exceptional media coverage, the website generated over 1,100 survey responses and 300 written comments were received. At the May 20, 2010 Steering Committee meeting, this input helped refine the initial 10 crossing alternatives to four.

    In August 2010, a second survey was launched and due to media coverage responding to the news release, nearly 700 members of the public provided online input. The carefully crafted surveys provided valuable demographical and driving habit information to help determine where people in the region were going, when and why. Survey data ultimately revealed three preferred crossing locations, approved by the Steering Committee for further study.

    Throughout the course of the project, members of the Tri-Cities print, radio and television media followed the project through regular Twitter messages and Constant Contact E-Newsletter updates. The Twitter and E-Newsletter campaigns proved so successful that news outlets in Seattle, Tacoma and Spokane provided media coverage of an October Public Meeting.

     

    Some traditional public involvement techniques were utilized (Public Open House and information booth at the County Fair), but the comments gathered through those processes were minimal compared to the input gathered via the online tools. Some public comments received praised the approach as the most effective way of reaching this diverse community.​

  • Street Fairs and Public Outreach

    ​During Development of a comprehensive transportation plan, outreach efforts were undertaken to solicit input from regions of the planning area traditionally less vocal than the norm. During the fall festivals, booths with maps, project lists, informational fliers and questionnaires/comment forms were set up at local festival sites (halloween festivals, ASPCA fund raising walks, Introduction to the 'Arts' day events etc), to interact with the public.

    During these events the maps and handouts viewed by many people who were not familiar with the organization doing the planning (MPO) and/or what was going on and how to comment on it.
     

    In four events over a three week period - over 2,000 responses were received. This was approximately 1700 more than received on the previous plan cycle.

     

     

     

Lessons Learned using Primary Technique:

  • Non-traditional Meeting Places and Events

  • Stakeholder Partnerships

  • Non-traditional Meeting Places and Events

  • Small Groups

  • Fact Sheets/Newsletters

  • Small Groups

  • Stakeholder Partnerships

  • Virtual Meetings/Workshops

  • Information Materials

  • Community Partnerships

  • 3D Visualization

  • Non-traditional Meeting Places and Events

  • Briefings

  • Social Media/Social Networking

  • Non-traditional Meeting Places and Events

Project Attributes
List of Stories

Primary Technique
  • Non-traditional Meeting Places and Events
  • Stakeholder Partnerships
  • Non-traditional Meeting Places and Events
  • Small Groups
  • Fact Sheets/Newsletters
  • Small Groups
  • Stakeholder Partnerships
  • Virtual Meetings/Workshops
  • Information Materials
  • Community Partnerships
  • 3D Visualization
  • Non-traditional Meeting Places and Events
  • Briefings
  • Social Media/Social Networking
  • Non-traditional Meeting Places and Events

Other Techniques used
  • 63;#Open Houses/Open Forum Hearings;#28;#Drop-In Centers;#44;#Information Materials;#82;#Speakers' Bureaus and Public Involvement Volunteers;#79;#Small Groups
  • 30;#Email;#50;#Library Partnerships;#71;#Public Opinion Surveys
  • 44;#Information Materials;#32;#Fact Sheets/Newsletters;#35;#Fliers
  • 36;#Focus Groups;#79;#Small Groups;#49;#Key Person Interviews;#83;#Stakeholder Partnerships
  • 30;#Email
  • 4;#3D Visualization;#16;#Charrettes;#19;#Civic (Stakeholder/Citizen) Advisory Committees;#49;#Key Person Interviews
  • 53;#Media Strategies
  • 91;#Video Sharing
  • 39;#Grocery Bags;#35;#Fliers
  • 92;#Video Techniques;#25;#Display Boards
  • 63;#Open Houses/Open Forum Hearings;#67;#Presentations
  • 25;#Display Boards;#44;#Information Materials
  • 30;#Email;#67;#Presentations;#98;#Websites;#52;#Mailing/Contact Lists
  • 25;#Display Boards;#30;#Email;#63;#Open Houses/Open Forum Hearings ;#71;#Public Opinion Surveys;#111;#Social Media/Social Networking;#84;#Technology Driven Public Meetings;#98;#Websites
  • 38;#GIS Mapping;#35;#Fliers;#66;#Posters;#71;#Public Opinion Surveys;#14;#Brochures

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