01472682

Component

Manhattan’s Chinatown has a rich cultural heritage, which provides a vivid experience for its many users. This experience generates a considerable amount of vehicular and pedestrian traffic resulting in curbside challenges. Using best practices from similar neighborhood transportation studies, the New York City Department of Transportation’s Chinatown Curbside Management Study (CCMS) sought to address these challenges by developing curbside improvements. An interactive and transparent process was critical to the study’s success. The CCMS adapted its public outreach to provide increased engagement to a hierarchical, traditional, predominantly non-English speaking, and over-studied community. Numerous stakeholder meetings and public workshops were held throughout the course of the study. A formal workshop was restructured to include a simultaneous neighborhood park workshop. Bringing the workshop to the people established a rapport and fostered a relationship with the public. Instead of writing off poor meeting attendance, the project team adapted to allow better engagement. Similarly, various community groups hosted smaller-scale workshops, held in native languages, to provide personalized interaction. Participants played a board game, which focused on identified issues, potential improvements, and the associated trade-offs of these treatments. Most recently, a mobile open house traveled through the study area to provide information on the proposed pilot treatments and collect feedback. This case study is a useful lesson for public involvement practitioners, particularly when engaging diverse and unique communities. As robust public involvement project portfolios are developed and implemented, it is critical that practitioners learn from and listen to the community and utilize an adaptive engagement approach.

This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ADA60 Public Involvement in Transportation.

01470560

13-0381

English

17p

2013

Transportation Research Board 92nd Annual Meeting

Digital/other

References (32)

Case studies; Culture (Social sciences); Pedestrians; Planning methods; Public participation; Social factors; Stakeholders; Traffic density; Workshops

Chinatown (New York, New York)

Highways; Pedestrians and Bicyclists; Planning and Forecasting; Safety and Human Factors; I21: Planning of Transport Infrastructure; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning

Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting 2013 Paper #13-0381

TRIS, TRB, ATRI

Feb 5 2013 12:13PM