Experience by Shockey colleagues at MoDOT illustrate the benefit, or more accurately, the necessity of lifting up all community voices in engagement. In 2017, MoDOT conducted a re-striping study along with a road safety audit of Natural Bridge Road in the City of St. Louis. The goal was to reduce accidents on Natural Bridge Road which had a very high rate of crashes. Public education was planned along with the road safety audit to build awareness about unsafe user behaviors – behaviors like not stopping at traffic lights and mid-block crossings.
Through focus groups that included family members of those killed in accidents on Natural Bridge Road, MoDOT learned a lot – including the revealing insight that drivers intentionally rolled through stop signs and traffic lights for fear of gun violence. Stopping at a stop sign next to another vehicle made them feel incredibly vulnerable in a neighborhood where gun violence was high. Based on this information, among the improvements constructed by MoDOT in 2020 was the conversion of several traffic lights to roundabouts.
So how can we develop engagement processes that set us up to do the same – to listen, to learn, and to develop community-based solutions? Here are some tips based on Shockey’s experience.
1. Be proactive about engagement for those least likely to participate. Our clients often come to us knowing who they are missing in engagement work. Most often, those groups include young people, people of color, and those with limited English proficiency. No need to wait until the first survey or public meeting to confirm what you already know. Plan to deploy tools that target less represented groups from the beginning with tactics that bring engagement to them – attend neighborhood or special interest group meetings, place signage that links to a survey in places where people gather like grocery stores, bus stops, and places of worship. The tactics should be determined by who the audience is but the strategy is the same: to go them.
2. Work with community champions who have authentic connections to less represented groups. Enlist their help in developing and delivering engagement to build trust in the process and make it more effective. Champions come in many forms. They could be staff members or elected or appointed officials. They could be a neighborhood leader, pastor, school board members or an active citizen. If a champion cannot readily be identified, use your process to identify and build those relationships for the future.
3. Always track demographics of engagement participation. At the very least, you will understand the limitations of your public input. Better yet – demographic data allows you to identify who is missing so you can plan small-group engagement to fill gaps. Tools like focus groups or individual interviews are ideal because they allow for an intentional two-way exchange that can lead to deeper learning.
On a recent greenway project, we were struggling to form an advisory committee that represented the community in terms of gender and age. Initial recruitment efforts had resulted in a very enthusiastic committee of almost entirely men who were 50+. We were able to use the demographics gathered in a survey to target our recruitment efforts to women and those under 35. The response was fantastic and we ended up with a highly engaged group that truly represented the project area, including an attention-stealing 9-month old (non-voting member).
What if MoDOT would have relied on a couple public meetings instead of focus groups for engagement for the road safety audit of Natural Bridge Road? Chances are they would not have gained the community insight needed to develop solutions to improve safety on Natural Bridge. Instead – they listened, they learned, and they developed a community-based solution.
You can do it too.