This (draft) article was written for publication in Trend Report, 5/11 as part of a special issue featuring The Grant Road Improvement Project. I am posting it here because, this Thursday, 6/28, 6 p.m. at Pima College, Downtown Campus, there is an Open House, celebrating the construction of the first phase and intersection of this project. The published article had some editing changes, but this draft is close to the final version.
Early and continuing outreach
leads to successful public engagement in major roadway project
Developing public trust and building social capital for a
project as large and controversial as Grant Road is a challenging process. In
addition to this challenge, these elements are not traditionally included in
transportation planning that is convened by government and design
professionals. The Grant Road Improvement Plan is a project that has
demonstrated how including elements of public engagement can lead to a successful
project and gain public trust and support for the necessary improvements and
for the public agencies involved.
In 2006, former City of Tucson Department of Transportation,
Deputy Director, Andrew Singelakis promoted a “context sensitive” approach to
roadway improvement planning which involved the public in framing the overall
design process for the improvement of Grant Road, one of Tucson’s busiest and
largest cross town arterials. This approach was an excellent example of public
participation and, to a lesser degree, of public engagement. In public involvement, the public takes a
role in providing input to a design process.
In public participation the public recommends final design decisions and
in public engagement, the public has an opportunity to actually implement some,
if not all, of the approved design decisions.
Soon after the voters approved the 2006 Regional
Transportation Authority (RTA) plan the City of Tucson took a proactive
approach to engaging the public by convening Community Conversations, working
with Community Renaissance with assistance from University of Arizona Planning
Program graduate students. The City of Tucson invited the public to participate
in sessions of small, structured conversations which gathered their stories and
memories in words and pictures of the history of Grant Road. This effort created a sense of place for Grant
Road and shaped community language for the project. One specific example of the language shift
was changing the way Grant Road was referred to as a “corridor” to a
“roadway.” The public did not share the
technical perspective of Grant Road as a means to move cars from here to there,
similar to a hallway between rooms.
Rather, they saw the area as a roadway, capturing the early history of
Grant Road as the original dirt road to Mt. Lemmon which connected fruit and
flower orchards to the University and to lodgings for patients with
tuberculosis. The public also expressed
a community-based interest in implementing doable, neighborhood and business-based
improvement projects for the roadway. For example, they offered to help with
maintenance of improved medians and buffer zones, and to help design public art
and lighting improvements. These were
actions of an engaged public, not just a public who had participated in
workshops or conversations. The outcome of these conversations became the
framework for the City of Tucson’s request for proposals for the planning and
design of Grant Road.
Kimley-Horn and Associates was the engineering firm awarded
the project. They contracted with Community Design and Architecture of Oakland,
CA. With their combined backgrounds in the Context Sensitive Solutions (CSS)
approach to roadway planning a continuation of public participation methods was
included in planning the future Grant Road. Kaneen Advertising and Public
Relations was contracted to do public education and participation for the
project and carried forth many of these methods. Community Renaissance was retained to develop
(and sometimes advocate for) public participation methods that continued to
provide opportunities for public engagement.
Public engagement is not a community behavior that can be
produced by a community project, but the elements necessary to provide
opportunities for engagement can be developed and encouraged. Public trust and social capital are two key
elements for public engagement, and are necessary for effective public
involvement and public participation.
Early in the development of the Grant Road Improvement Plan, the
planning team set a goal of establishing public trust by demonstrating
reiterative feedback with the public, the project Citizen Task Force, and the
planning team. Documented public
comments from public workshops and Task Force meetings illustrate early 2007
public attitudes as they shifted from mistrust of the planning team and the
City of Tucson with the project design process to their current 2011 public
attitudes of improved public trust.
The demonstration of improved social capital in the
geographic areas surrounding key intersections along Grant Road was illustrated
by a matrix developed by the planning team.
This matrix was used to assist the Citizen Task Force in making their
decision to identify the reconstruction phasing for the first construction
project for Grant Road. Social capital is defined by the World Bank as “norms
and networks that enable collective action.”
Yes, the building of public trust and social capital is a
challenging process. It is also a
fragile one and can easily be frayed by community tensions. These positive community character elements,
generated by the Grant Road Improvement Plan, can be the complementary goals to
other transportation and planning processes.
For example, the year old Imagine Greater Tucson effort has incorporated
the practice of community conversations into their first planning phase and is
focusing future strategies on multiple ways to expand regional community
involvement to include public participation and engagement. Designing Grant Road has been an intentional
plan for building community. The
project’s continued success depends on a deeper understanding and support for
the connection between a roadway and the people whose lives are connected
through it.
