Public Engagement in the Era of Covid

Many years ago, at the conclusion of an intern's time at WATS, I asked them to reflect on their new understanding of what our agency does.  Their response has stuck with me ever since.

I paraphrase: While I understand the importance and necessity of federal requirements, I think the most important function of WATS is opening up a confusing transportation planning process to the public and allowing them to participate in a meaningful way.

Yea.  (We’ve had some pretty bright interns over the years)

We have a litany of processes and procedural requirements that guide much of what we do, but attempting to open up the process to people has been paramount to our agency for decades. While it’s difficult for almost any transportation planning agency to claim success in terms of the number of people engaged, I feel confident in our ability to present information in a way that makes as much sense as possible given those processes and procedural requirements.

But a lot has changed since mid-March and our ability to engage people in person, perhaps the most meaningful type of engagement we receive has been flipped on its head. 

Shy of standing on the roof of 200 N. Main with a megaphone shouting a list of Transportation Improvement Program (TIP) amendments (which is not allowed - I checked) we knew that our focus had to turn virtual.  While public engagement efforts since the age of ubiquitous computing have largely moved towards online participation, transportation planning agencies across the state have realized the importance of not excluding people without access to the internet.  Non-virtual participation has been extremely limited during portions of the shut-down, and even as it becomes possible with the loosening of some restrictions, we recognize and understand that many people do not feel safe with in person participation.  For these reasons, we realized the importance of increasing our virtual presence.

So what are we doing about it?

Wednesday Reads - Each Wednesday we feature a list of articles that we’ve been reading.

Fast Fact Fridays - Sometimes locally focused, sometimes more broad.  Fast Fact Friday always delivers useful information for your next virtual water cooler discussion.  

Brought back the popular WATS Blog - Here from a member of WATS staff each week.

Added a new E-newsletter - WATS Up - The “Reader’s Digest” version of all our virtual outreach delivered straight to your inbox each month.

Virtual Committee meetings - Under the Governor’s Executive Order 2020-129, WATS has held both the Technical Subcommittee and WATS Policy Committee meeting virtually via ZOOM.

Virtual Public Engagement meetings - A major project for this year is the Chelsea POP tactical urbanism project in partnership with the City of Chelsea and Saint Joseph Mercy Health System.  Unfortunately the pandemic has severely limited our ability to execute the robust in-person public engagement strategy planned for this project.  Fortunately we were able to adapt and hold a series of virtual engagement meetings to supplement a number of surveys received as we zero in on a proposed short term solution to improve safety in the City of Chelsea!