designing public consensus

I’ve written long and hard on why it is the designer’s/planner’s role to make public process informative, factual, acceptable, and transparent to the public. But what is the responsibility of the public to get the facts? For a good example of how things should NOT work, here’s the story of what’s happened in my own neighborhood over the past few months.

The neighborhood association officials are not elected by the neighborhood. They appoint their own successors. You can see there is already a problem. Because we are in-town, there are many development pressures surrounding the neighborhood. A few years ago, the association went after a few of the developers, and with some matching grants has proceeded to devise a $4 million plan for “pedestrian and traffic calming.” 

I wrote about our ongoing neighborhood brawl in a recent post at Planetizen, but here’s a quick refresher: We’re talking about a lovely old area, adjacent to an Olmsted-designed park, with wide sweeping streets, scenic vistas, and plenty of topography. The “traffic calming” plan will tighten all the streets into one lane, limit parking, and install new speed bumps and larger traffic islands, which they affectionately call “amoebouts.” They did not hire a traffic engineer to design the new streets but relied instead on a variety of donated designs from neighbors.

Association officials had what they thought was a fine idea, found the money to pay for it—or at least a portion of it—-and have become fiercely determined to make it happen. Several neighbors, most of whom are involved in public infrastructure projects for a living (yes, I am one of them), think it’s an extraordinarily bad idea. It is simply too much for no good reason, an overzealous attempt to fix something that does not need fixing. No accidents, no issues, just money burning a hole in the neighborhood association’s pocket.

The association leadership decided that if 75% of property owners approved this plan, the city council would have to cave in and give approval to reconstruct the streets. So the association held public meetings, where the leadership presented only their rosy picture of the traffic plan. They did not disclose such information as how much infrastructure (water, sewer, etc.) will need to be replaced or how $4 million will ever be enough to rebuild streets and construct 15 traffic islands. The neighborhood web site tells only their side of the story. If you spoke against the plan, you were simply shouted down or booed off the floor. Read the rest of this entry »

Late in 2006, Atlanta’s Mayor Shirley Franklin invited friends and colleagues to a book signing for Designing Public Consensus in Atlanta City Hall.

I’ve learned a lot from Mayor Franklin. During the Olympic years in Atlanta, 1994 to 1996, she took the new Olympic plans for neighborhoods and venues into the community and listened to what the people
living in the redevelopment areas wanted. The projects were built without much angst and the city went on to have a successful Olympics.

Mayor Franklin is a rock star of a mayor, rated among the best of this country’s leaders. She is a role model for women in both the public and private sector, and I was thrilled to listen to her speak on her accomplishments in the public process world. Mayor Franklin’s main theme is to listen to what people are saying. And I’ve taken that advice to heart, as many of you have. It sounds very simple, but we all know it’s not easy.

In the end, it is all about how the public reacts to the issues before them. They can expand, promote, or kill a project.

Many designers need to figure out that this is how to make projects successful. Just listen. You may have to make some changes, but in the end it is a better project.

I had a great time at the book signing. Thank you to all who attended.

When we run public meetings, we’re responsible for the plans, agenda, and entire event schedule. But attending a public meeting as a member of the public is like a venture into the unknown—who will be there, how it will be run, or who will be in charge are all a big mystery.

Not long ago I attended a neighborhood public meeting to speak against a new traffic (“calming”) plan that my well-intentioned neighbors are proposing.

The short explanation: some neighbors have decided that redevelopment around our intown neighborhood is sure to cause more traffic on the residential streets. They waged war against Atlantic Station, a new mix use development, and got $4.5 million in a 1999 settlement to make road improvements. They have chosen to put traffic circles called “amoebouts” at each intersection (a concept invented by the designers of the Ansley Park Traffic and Pedestrian Access Improvements Master Plan). The design makes the streets look like a giant slalom ride or a huge maze of asphalt circles. They are even proposing to put a tot lot in one of the larger circles, a notion that gives the admonishment to “go play in traffic” new meaning.

I conduct public meetings for a living. So of course I was interested in how the neighbors would conduct theirs. On arriving for the first meeting in mid-September, we still did not know the format or agenda. So we came early, and my fellow opponents handed out a one-page sheet describing what was wrong with the traffic plan, just in case we could not speak.

For me, the main issue is that the traffic counts in the neighborhood are actually less than before Atlantic Station opened, so we are trying to fix something that may not need fixing. The plan proposes a solution when the problem is not clear. Also, the solution has not been vetted or approved by a traffic engineer, and there has been no safety analysis. Plus, I don’t like what this solution does to our Olmsted-designed neighborhood. 

We asked the proponent speakers how many accidents had occurred, how many tickets for speeding had been written, and–more to the point–why we need a traffic-calming plan. There was not a traffic engineer speaking that evening, and the speakers on hand could not answer with facts. I thought it might be best to present real information for the public to respond to. The proponents said they had worked very hard on the plan for a few years and so everyone should sign the petitions in favor. 

I finally had the opportunity to comment and told the neighborhood we need experienced professionals who are traffic experts to do the plan. I was booed by the proponents. That’s not the first time I’ve been booed in a public meeting, but it’s a little different when it’s your neighbors doing the booing. I certainly found that if you speak out against the flow in the neighborhood, you won’t win any popularity contests.

Bottom line: the meeting was a waste of time because the presentation was short on facts and lacked expertise.

The proponents are doing a series of smaller meetings of neighbors, and I’ve been making myself persona non grata at a few of those as well.