With the importance of public engagement for transportation agencies, it’s reassuring to see the efforts that agencies are making to conduct meaningful research and share best practices and leading case studies. One of the most effective examples we’ve seen was conducted by the University of Illinois at Chicago’s Institute for Policy and Civic Engagement and culminated in a report report commissioned by the Illinois Department of...
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For local government agencies it can be a daunting task to keep track of the myriad of firms specializing in products and services to fulfill their needs. Engaging Local Government Leaders (ELGL) understand this challenge well. That’s why they conducted an extensive voting process to compile a ranking of the Top 50 Local Government Vendors. Agencies will find a terrific assortment of online tools, community engagement...
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This unique portal complements the more traditional public meetings in an effort to broaden public input by allowing the public to provide input online in only a few minutes. NCDOT selected MetroQuest in order to provide an interactive experience that would increase the level of public input to guide their planning process. “We are very excited to leverage MetroQuest to collect public input to inform our State...
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Planners, like any other professionals, live in a kind of bubble. Those charged with dealing with the public run the risk of expecting too much from residents as they design community engagement activities. Here are some of the most common mistakes. It's great to focus on the positive and celebrate the best case studies, but sometimes it's useful to learn from our mistakes. For the purposes of...
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Ensuring that community engagement opportunities are open to all residents is not only the law, it's also good for planning. Incorporating a diversity of viewpoints improves plans, facilitates implementation, and frankly leads to better communities that meet the needs of all residents. Unfortunately too often the accessibility discussion doesn't get out of first gear. When it comes to ensuring open and inclusive public engagement, it's critical...
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