Category: [SUCCESS]

The Survey of the Month series is a monthly blog where we highlight the extraordinary work our customers are doing, along with some takeaways that are relevant for anyone interested in making the most out of online engagement using MetroQuest’s survey platform! To see more in the series, visit the blogs here.

What’s the story? Seminole Relief Route

Seminole, Texas, is a major hub and a part of an important transportation corridor that connects and provides access to the area’s energy sector. Heavy use of the roads through the city by semi-trucks increase congestion and require wide roads. Furthermore, the region’s large agricultural industry contributes to additional pressures on the roadway system. The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT), one of MetroQuest’s most active customers, is conducting a study to improve mobility and ease congestion in Seminole. The study evaluated existing roadway, explored funding options and considered all alternative solutions, including the option to defer the project.

In addition to a virtual public meeting, they created a MetroQuest survey in both English and Spanish, discussed in detail below, to gauge community priorities and collect opinions around these options.

For more information on the project, please visit the Seminole Relief Route project website.

Anatomy of a Mobility Survey: How they used MetroQuest

The Seminole Relief Route survey starts with the Welcome Screen, as do all MetroQuest surveys, where TxDOT provides background information on the study to explain the intent of the survey and thank participants for their input.

The first interactive Screen is a Priority Ranking Screen, where participants are presented with seven priorities, namely (in random order) Protect the Environment, Support Economic Growth, Maintain the Existing Highway, Enhance Mobility, Relieve Congestion, Improve Safety, and Limit Right-of-Way Impact. Each priority is presented with an image and a short and clear “I want …” description to help participants decide what is most important to them.

The second activity is on the Project Selection Screen, presenting the three conception route options on a Google Map so that participants can visualize the options geographically. Each option is explained in more detail, including their estimated cost. Participants are asked to review the options and their location, and decide if the options in question should be a priority.

Finally, before answering a few demographic questions on the Wrap Up Screen, participants are asked to provide input on the same three options on a Scenario Rating Screen.

Here, the three options are presented as design concepts showing what a typical section design would look like conceptually. The task is to rate each on a 5-point scale. Asking for input on the same three options in two different ways is a smart way for the survey team to capture preferences for the three options from people, irrespective if they are more drawn to visual concepts or lines on a map!

If you’d like to try it out, visit the demo survey here. This version that will not collect data or affect the survey results.

5 Tips from the Seminole Relief Route Survey: Using MetroQuest to Understand Participant’s Preferences

TxDOT’s ample experience using MetroQuest for online engagement is reflected in this survey. The team make the most of built-in capabilities that help participants to recognize the importance of the study and understand the value of their contribution, while also helping the survey team to understand participants preferences and make a well-supported decision on the project. Below are 5 takeaways from their survey:

1. Both the Welcome and the Wrap Up Screen have space for a project or partner logo. This survey utilizes these spaces to feature the official TxDOT logo which is great for brand recognition as well as legitimacy – participants can rest assured this is an official survey created by their DOT!

2. Similarly, the colors of both the Welcome and the Wrap Up Screen are found in the TxDOT logo and many of their surveys utilize the same or similar color palette. This too is great for its recognition factor. MetroQuest allows the survey builder to completely customize the color palette to match a project or partner logo, or an official palette. This type of color branding helps trigger recognition and is great for building a brand around the agency or project. You can also choose one of our many pre-set palettes that follow best practices in terms of visibility, contrast, and appeal!

3. On the Priority Ranking Screen, the survey team opted to feature seven possible priorities and asked participants to choose their three favorites. We always recommend doing exactly that – limit the number of priorities so that participants can easily digest the options, and ask participants to prioritize only a subset for better input. In this case, participants only had to pick three out of seven total. This nudges participants to decide on what is truly important to them and also keeps the task simple and fast.

4. TxDOT opted to utilize the Scenario Rating Screen to present the three options’ design concepts visually and ask for input. This is a great use of the comparative nature of this Screen as it allows participants to switch back and forth to understand differences between the options so that they can make an informed choice. It’s a great way to provide a lot of context and options in a short time!

5. Finally, as previously alluded to, it is an excellent idea to utilize multiple Screens to ask for input on the same topic, especially if that is the core of your study. In this case, that is the three options for the Seminole Route. This conceptually connects the two Screens but presents the options in two very different ways: spatially on a map and visually as design concepts. This allows the team to capture input on the options in complimentary ways, allowing for the most informed input from the widest possible audience.

Congratulations to the team at TxDOT for yet another well-executed survey and great engagement success!

For more great tips on how to make the most out of MetroQuest, contact your Customer Experience manager or reach out for more information!

Want to learn more about how TxDOT engages beyond public meetings? Check out our webinar:

Public Involvement – How TxDOT Engages Beyond Meetings

Input from online engagement is informing transportation decisions in Texas. Learn how TxDOT embraces innovation to successfully educate and engage residents on projects at any scale.

The Survey of the Month series is a monthly blog where we highlight the extraordinary work our customers are doing, along with some takeaways that are relevant for anyone interested in making the most out of online engagement using MetroQuest’s online survey platform!

This month, we are excited to highlight some recent work from the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) and AECOM, a long-standing customer that has created countless fantastic surveys for a wide-ranging variety of projects. We will be focusing on their work on our new platform, MetroQuest 2020. To read about the latest releases, check out our blogs. If you are unsure which version you and your team are on, please contact us to ensure you can benefit from updates and new feature releases!

What’s the story? US-131 Planning and Environmental Linkages Study

AECOM is working with the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) on a Planning and Environmental Linkages (PEL) study. PELs are decision-making approaches that focus on environmental aspects, the community, as well as economic goals in the early phases of a transportation planning process. The outcome of a PEL informs the formal federal National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) environmental review process.

Based on previous public and stakeholder feedback, MDOT identified a segment of US-131 in the area around the cities of Grand Rapids and Wyoming as a priority zone to be analyzed in a PEL study. The purpose of the study was to evaluate improvements for the corridor respective to conditions, safety, and operations, as well as local access needs, community development, and economic growth. The first phase of public involvement of the US-131 PEL wrapped up in February of this year. We’ll take a closer look at the survey that the team used to gather public opinion.

For more information on the project, please visit the official webpage: https://michigan.gov/US-131PEL.

Anatomy of a PEL Survey: Using MetroQuest to Identify Corridor Needs, Issues, and Solutions

After a short introduction on the Welcome Screen, the interactive part of the survey starts with a Strategy Rating Screen. Here, participants were asked about corridor needs in different categories, including traffic operations, safety, infrastructure, and economy. Participants were presented with statements regarding needs addressed in the study and were asked to provide their agreement through means of selecting their response on a five-point scale.

On the next Screen, participants were asked to identify issues geospatially on a Map by means of placing markers. The markers allowed participants to indicate areas of safety, congestion, multi-modal opportunities, pavement/ramp/bridge conditions, and “other”. Each marker allowed participants to type in a response to explain their choice or describe the issue. A great feature utilized on this Map Marker Screen is the location drop down – see further down for details on how this was used!

Finally, before answering demographic questions, participants were presented with a Priority Ranking Screen where they were asked to rank evaluation criteria for different elements of potential solutions. The criteria to rank were, in random order: Property + development impacts, Travel time reliability, Congestion reduction, Multi-modal safety and comfort, Corridor crash reduction, Freight access + circulation, Cost of investment, Economic growth + development, and Corridor pavement + bridge conditions. By gathering data about broad public opinion around potential solutions, planners can understand what priorities are important to the public and stakeholders.

If you’d like to try the survey, try this demo survey. This version does not collect data and will not affect the survey results.

5 Tips from US-131 PEL Study: Incentivize Input by Presenting Complex Materials in a Straightforward Way

AECOM’s wealth of experience with MetroQuest shines through in this well-executed survey. Here are 5 takeaways from their survey to make your next survey a success as well:

1. We really liked how this survey explains the purpose of the survey briefly and concisely, right up front on the Welcome Screen that visitors see when they first arrive. Within seconds, visitors can get context for the project, which helps them feel invested and prompts them to continue taking the survey.

2. We typically recommend progressing your Screens by starting with simple tasks and moving on to more complex one. In other words, we always suggest starting your survey with the easiest type of Screen to complete. This is in part to warm up participants to how they will be providing input and also to give them a sense of how fun and quick this survey will be.

3. At the same time, you also want to ensure that you are asking what is most important early in the experience when you have participants’ fullest attention. The Strategy Rating Screen used in this example can be text heavy and complicated, but AECOM brilliantly avoided that by asking for input on only 2-3 needs in 4 categories. This makes the Screen feel more manageable and avoids overwhelming the participant with too much text but is also able to gather the data that the survey team really wants right at the beginning of the survey. This might sound counter-intuitive, but less text means you will receive more input, or, more specifically, fewer items yield more data. Bottom line: Ask only what you really want to know!

4. A great feature that this survey utilized on the Map Marker Screen is the location drop down. This allows participants to zoom into an area of interest to provide input. It also gives you more accurate data!

5. Speaking of dropdowns, AECOM wisely chose to use mostly dropdown or checkbox answers on the final Wrap Up Screen for demographic questions. This allows participants to provide their information much faster than typing which means they are more likely to do so. Also – have you ever wondered why we recommend our customers to ask for demographic information at the very end? Our experience has taught us that participants are more likely to tell you about themselves after they have already provided input on the project and have a vested interest!

With clever use of MetroQuest Screens and a great understanding of what makes an excellent survey, AECOM and MDOT put their best food forward for this PEL study. With promotions on media and social media, they got a high response with over 2000 survey responses. Congratulations to the team for a fantastic survey!

For more great tips on how to make the most out of MetroQuest, contact your Customer Experience manager or reach out for more information. The latest version of MetroQuest includes many new and highly anticipated updates and features. If you are not yet on the new platform, please contact me to get you set up!

For the past 9 months, we have been bringing you the Survey of the Month—a noteworthy example of a MetroQuest survey created by one of our customers—and we continue to be excited about sharing the many fantastic surveys that we see every day.

This month is particularly exciting for us at MetroQuest because for the first time, we are highlighting a survey on our new platform: MetroQuest 2020! We are thrilled to showcase not only an amazing survey on a very relevant topic, but also to use it to shine a spotlight on some great new features that are available to all customers who have made the switch to MetroQuest 2020. If you haven’t yet, get in touch with me today to schedule your orientation session!

What’s the story? Identifying Current and Future Needs for Pineville’s Mobility Plan

The March Survey of the Month supports a mobility plan in Pineville, NC, that the Town of Pineville created in conjunction with their consultant and long-standing MetroQuest customer Kimley-Horn. This community driven effort focuses on improving biking and walking accessibility in the community, as well as transit in Pineville. The goal of the study is to identify current and future needs in order to develop recommendations for a safe and easy-to-use multimodal transportation system. The survey was created as a follow-up to an in-person public meeting, and as a way to gather more input from the community.

For more information, please review the mobility plan report.

Anatomy of a Survey: Designing for Community-First Mobility in Pineville

All MetroQuest surveys have five components, called Screens, and start with a Welcome Screen that introduces the project and Wrap Up Screen that concludes the survey. Like many of our surveys, the Pineville Mobility Survey starts the interactive portion of the survey with a Priority Ranking Screen where visitors are asked to rank their top 5 policies out of a list of 8, then continues on to a Strategy Rating Screen where participants are asked to weigh in on where mobility is most needed.

Both of these Screens, particularly in this order, are great ways to gather input while also warming up participants to online engagement. You can read more about using Priority Ranking and Strategy Rating Screens in my blog about long-range transportation planning in Northeastern Pennsylvania.

I want to focus on Pineville’s fourth interactive Screen, a Project Selection Screen, for a multitude of reasons. The Screen shows 12 different possible projects on a map, with a task for participants to choose their top 5. This is not a frequently used Screen as it is much more specific in its use than, for example, a prioritization exercise—perhaps the most common exercise in engagement for planning. The Project Selection Screen is best suited for a project that already has planned alternatives, which are ideally geographic in nature. If your project has alternatives that can be shown on a map, this Screen is an incredibly effective way to gather input and tease out which alternative(s) should become a reality in the point of view of the public.

Let’s dig a little deeper. The Project Selection Screen presents a Google Map with a number of colored segments, each with a corresponding marker that, when clicked, describes the project and asks for input. In this case, participants are asked to answer “yes/no” to the question of whether this project should be a priority. It is a very visual way to present alternatives and a simple exercise with great impact for planning purposes as it collects clear-cut data on top priority projects. It is particularly well-suited to transportation surveys where alternative alignments are under consideration for a corridor, or as in this case, where different possible multi-use paths or bike lanes are being considered.

To try the survey, visit the demo version here. This will not affect the survey results.

5 Tips from the Pineville Mobility Plan Survey: Community-Based Mobility Planning

The Town of Pineville and Kimley-Horn created a very engaging survey that gathers informed input for data-driven decision making. The team made great use of MetroQuest to create the survey: read on for some takeaways that you can apply to your next project:

1. The use of the Project Selection Screen was a perfect choice for this project as they have a manageable number of alternative multi-use path and bike lane options that need to be prioritized. Asking the community to weigh in on possible projects is a critically important part of the planning process for any mobility plan at this stage as it empowers participants to make their voice heard and creates enormous support for a plan that will require approval.

2. On the Project Selection Screen, each of the projects are described in just the right amount of detail. It’s important to find the balance: provide enough information for participants to be able to make informed decisions, but not too much information which can feel overwhelming and might cause a participant to abandon the exercise.

3. The team made great use of the general comment button, a frequently requested feature that is now an opinion for every interactive Screen in MetroQuest 2020! The top bar of each Screen now contains a comment bubble that can be turned on to gather general input that doesn’t pertain specifically to any particular question. The Pineville mobility survey has this option available on every Screen.

4. The survey also takes advantage of the social media buttons on the Wrap Up Screen, giving participants a familiar way to share the survey on different platforms.

5. The project partner pop-up on the Wrap Up Screen, which allowed the team to add partner logos without clogging up valuable real estate on the page! MetroQuest 2020 supports up to 20 logos, and each one of them can be linked to a website so participants can go on to read more about project partners.

Congratulations to the Town of Pineville and Kimley-Horn for a fantastic survey and for making great use of some of the new features on MetroQuest 2020! We’re excited by how our customers are already using the new version, and can’t wait to see how you surprise us next.

For more tips on how to make the most out of MetroQuest, contact your Customer Experience manager or reach out for more information!

Want to learn more about how MetroQuest supports community outreach for any size project? Check out our recent webinar:

How Online Public Engagement Takes Off: Lessons from a Bikeway Study in NC

How can you reliably engage participants regardless of the size of the project? In this webinar, our dynamic panel shows us powerful community engagement tactics, helping planning teams reach 1000’s for projects big and small!

Our Survey of the Month blog series is a way to recognize particularly great examples of community engagement surveys created by MetroQuest subscribers. The series also aims to provide the tools and inspiration for YOU to create your next great survey!

This month, we depart from the topic of transportation to highlight a fantastic comprehensive plan on a smaller scale. Port St. Lucie in Southern Florida is an extremely well-executed survey by our longstanding customer Kimley-Horn. Let’s dive into it!

What’s the story? Port St. Lucie City Center Small Area Plan

For this project, the City of Port St. Lucie is developing a Small Area Plan for its City Center (around 50 acres) and utilized a MetroQuest survey to gather public input to access the understanding of current conditions, to identify future needs and to learn what investments will be required to meet these needs. The goal is to create a multi-year redevelopment project to create a vibrant and walkable destination with retail and dining opportunities as well as hotel and conference center amenities.

To learn more about the project, please visit the project website here.

Anatomy of a Small Area Plan Survey: Using MetroQuest to Identify Priorities for Small Scale Projects

After a short introduction on the first Screen of the Survey that includes a few key features discussed further below, the Port St. Lucie MetroQuest survey utilizes a Priority Ranking Screen to ask participants to rank five items that represent potential elements of the City Centre. Participants choose their favorite five items out of a list of eight, namely (listed in random order): Retail/Shopping/Dining, Senior Living, General Office Space, Multifamily Residential, Medical Office, Recreation, Hotel, and Government Services. By identifying participants’ top five among the items, the Planning and Zoning Department and Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) can identify the most pressing priorities within the community.

The survey continues with a Tradeoff Screen, presenting 5 topics that help inform the plans for the City Center, namely Neighborhood Design, Intensity, Open Space, Public Facilities, and Transportation. The task for participants is to weigh in on each topic by indicating where their preferences fall on the spectrum between two choices.

The third and final interactive task is a Budget Allocation Screen, where participants are asked to distribute a fictitious budget of $100 across six categories: Business Development Program, Multimodal Hub, Open Space/Recreation, Wayfinding/Signage, Public Art, and Community Events. Each category is further explained so that participants can make an informed decision on where they would prioritize funding and investment. This activity reinforces the idea of budget prioritization for participants, illustrating that resources for the Small Area Plan will be split between different aspects of redevelopment as funds are always limited.

If you’d like to try the survey, visit the demo version here. This version does not collect data and will not affect the survey results.

5 Tips from Port St. Lucie City Center: Make a Big Impact for Your Small Projects

While many of our subscribers use MetroQuest for large scale transportation projects, this survey proves small scale projects, such as urban design plans, can also use online surveys for successful public engagement. Below are 5 takeaways from the survey:

1. The Tradeoff Screen is particularly well-suited for design related projects as they often contain, well, tradeoffs. The Screen visually presents choices for multiple categories on spectrums. It helps participants understand that typically, choosing one priority, like a type of development for example, means forgoing another. To learn more, read about using the Tradeoff Screen for education in community outreach!

2. On the Budget Allocation Screen, one of the details that has a big impact is the “Details” button that allows the survey team to describe each of the categories in more detail without clogging up the Screen with long blocks of text. This way, you can keep your category names short and to the point but also provide longer explanations for those who wish to learn a bit more before making a decision!

3. Another item with big impact is the location pop up on the Welcome Screen. This pop up can be used to provide any kind of supplemental information but is particularly well-suited for a map of the project area, as seen in this survey. This helps participants understand exactly what the project covers geographically.

4. The Welcome Screen has another neat feature: the Slide Carousel. At the bottom of the Screen, you can add up to 5 factoids or short pieces of information on the project and the carousel will automatically cycle through them, at the speed you desire. This allows you to present more information without overwhelming the Screen or the participants.

5. Last but not least, the exceptionally well-executed Priority Ranking Screen deserves a shout-out. Particularly, each priority description really explains what it would mean if this item was prioritized in the redevelopment plan. For example, the description for Multifamily Residential states that “[p]rioritizing Multifamily Residential would encourage a greater mix of housing types in the area. The intent is to meet the needs and preferences of all existing and potential future residents.” Thorough explanations like this allow for truly informed input!

Congratulations to Kimley-Horn and the whole team involved on creating a fantastic input gathering experience!

For more great tips on how to make the most out of MetroQuest, contact your Customer Experience manager or reach out for more information.

Want to learn more about how you can reliably engage 1000s of participants, regardless of the size of the project? Check out our recent webinar!

How Online Public Engagement Takes Off: Lessons from a Bikeway Study in NC

Watch as a dynamic panel shows us powerful community engagement tactics for any type of project, helping planning teams build a culture of engagement, target key groups, and reach 1000s of participants!

We never cease to be inspired by the impressive work done by our customers. We will continue to put the spotlight on particularly great examples of MetroQuest surveys and hope you are inspired in turn!

For the first Survey of the Month of 2021, we are highlighting a fantastic firm and long-standing customer of MetroQuest: Kim Lundgren Associates (KLA). The team’s amazing work in the sustainability realm is remarkable, as discussed in this blog on climate change and sustainability.  This particular example caught our attention for multiple reasons: the important topic of resilience in the face of climate change, the team’s straightforward approach using informative key documents, and of course, a delightful MetroQuest survey!

What’s the story? Climate Change Action and Resilience in Beverly and Salem

The City of Beverly and City of Salem in Massachusetts have partnered to take action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to climate change impacts. The joint plan, called “Resilient Together,” aims to identify priorities for climate change preparedness and work towards exceeding Massachusetts’ goal of carbon neutrality by 2050.

The team at KLA put together three brilliant key documents on the project website:

1. A plan overview identifying core issues and solutions. It discusses the climate impacts that the communities are already experiencing such as intense storms, sea level rise, drought, flooding, and heat waves, and goes on to discuss current behaviors contributing to carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions. The two-pager also discusses seven focus areas, namely building & development, natural resources, public health & safety, solid waste, mobility, energy, and infrastructure. The goals of the climate change action plan will align with six guiding principles, namely community resilience, economic vitality, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, restoration & transformation, health, and equity. Finally, it includes the plan’s timeline and ways to stay involved.
2. A climate change fact sheet with more detailed context, including GHG emissions by sector and thorough coverage of the negative impacts of climate change experienced by the communities in question.
3. A report on vulnerability preparedness of Beverly.

All three documents are created in infographic style, making them both informative and interesting. To explore the reports in more detail and to learn more, please visit the Resilient Together project website.

Anatomy of an MTP Survey: Identifying Climate Action Plan Priorities using MetroQuest Surveys

The survey starts with enough background information to inform the participant of the plan and the objective of the survey. Utilizing a Standard Survey Screen, it asks participants for their input on the categories of Taking Action, Climate Action Plan, Impacts, City Preparedness, and Engagement.

The survey continues with a Priority Ranking Screen to help the team understand participants’ baseline knowledge as well as learn their thoughts on seven areas of the community that the plan will focus on namely Public Health & Safety, Mobility, Buildings & Development, Infrastructure, Natural Resources, Solid Waste, and Energy. These priorities are always presented in random order to reduce bias: studies show that items which are listed first tend to be picked more.

Finally, before wrapping up the survey with a few demographic questions, a thank you message and a prominently featured plan logo, the survey presents an Image Rating Screen which is linked to the Priority Ranking Screen. On it, participants are presented with the categories they have previously identified as important to them and, by means of representative images, are asked to indicate on a five-point scale whether they agree or disagree with statements. There are five subcategories in each, such as Trees, Parks, Open Space, Shoreline, and Invasive Species in the “Natural Resources” category.

If you would like to try the survey, click here. This is a demo version that will not affect the survey results. In order to reach non-English speaking communities, the survey was also offered in Spanish and Portuguese.

5 Tips from Resilient Together: Great Content Leads to Great Surveys!

The Resilient Together MetroQuest survey was a great success – over 1000 participants provided their input! In part, their success can be attributed to a delightful survey with fantastic content around the important topic of climate change preparedness. Below are 5 takeaways from the survey to inspire your next project:

1. First impressions matter! This survey immediately catches one’s attention with a beautiful background image on the Welcome Screen, as well as an eye-catching logo and screen colors that match the well-designed logo. It’s inviting but not distracting!

2. While we rarely recommend using the Standard Survey Screen, because it’s less visually appealing and interesting and lacks the benefits of other types of Screens, it is efficient in asking more traditional survey questions. KLA did a great job keeping it interesting by switching up the question types from drop downs and checkboxes to clickable buttons and text boxes. This helps prevent survey fatigue which in turn leads to more input and better results.

3. I have mentioned this before, but it is worth highlighting again: taking advantage of the ability to connect the Priority Ranking Screen to a subsequent Screen, in this case the Image Rating Screen, is a fantastic way to give a survey a tailored feel and ensure the participant provides additional input on what they deem important. This too will lead to better input and greater success!

4. The use of images is always a good idea. Instead of simply asking participants if they agree with statements, KLA achieved the same thing in a visual way with images for each statement. This makes the survey more visually appealing which – you guessed it – leads to more engagement and better results.

5. Finally – and while this is not directly related to their survey, KLA provided abundant context for the climate change action plan – providing informative yet concise background information is of utter importance. It is easy to forget that not everyone has the knowledge the survey team has, and few people will read long articles for background information. The use of short 2-page documents and infographics is a fun and effective way to educate participants before they dive into answering questions. It is also great for follow-up afterwards. As project information typically needs to be available for longer than the survey will be live and collecting data, we always recommend including this information on the project website. This also ensures the actual survey experience takes only 5-10 minutes!

Congratulations to the KLA team for a truly fantastic MetroQuest survey. Climate change preparedness is a critically important topic—great work!

For more great tips on how to make the most out of MetroQuest, contact your Customer Experience manager or reach out for more information!

Want to learn more about how MetroQuest supports community outreach on your next transportation plan? Check out our recent webinar:

Public Involvement – How TxDOT Engages Beyond Meetings

Getting meaningful public engagement on transportation projects can be challenging. While the public are not planners, they care about local issues! Learn how TxDOT shares innovative approaches to reaching an increasingly preoccupied and diverse public.