Tag: Rogue Valley

Two Questions Framed My Approach to CPW

Posted on by Julia Havens

Austin Cummings CPW Community Planning Workshop RVTD-Rogue Valley Transit District High Capacity Transit

What is planning and the role of the planner? 

Stepping into Community Planning Workshop, I had little experience working in the formal planning field and an even smaller knowledge about the technical aspects of planning. Part of my goal for taking the class was to understand planning and what being a planner meant. Two questions framed my approach to CPW: what is planning and what is its ultimate purpose? Throughout the past two terms I have come to a couple conclusions, which will ultimately shape my approach to understanding planning and being apart of the planning process as I move forward in my carrier.  

The CPW project I am a part of  (RVTD-Rogue Valley Transit District High Capacity Transit) focuses on understanding public perceptions and opinions around transit and developing high capacity transit in the Rogue Valley. Throughout our project, we gathered public perceptions using a number of methods, including surveys, focus groups, and key person interviews. Our main job is to listen, relay information to our client, and provide recommendations for moving forward in the development process.  Ultimately, I feel that through the act of listening we are helping to facilitate the creation of a vision of what transportation, land use, connectivity, and opportunity will look like in the Rogue Valley 20 to 50 years from now. After reflecting on the purpose of this project and engaging in fruitful conversations with my team members and project manager, I have cultivated a particular conceptualization of what planning is and the role of the planner.

First, I believe the purpose of the field of planning is to create inclusive places that allow people to individually and collectively flourish. Creating inclusive places entails having inclusive, empowering, authentic, and holistic public participation processes. Throughout the public participation process everyone should have the opportunity to shape their community. Additionally, planning entities, governments, and other institutions should be committed to a progressive perspective that centers on treating everyone with respect, dignity, and benevolence and providing the public with the means to significantly impact decision making processes.

Next, given the this particular view of planning, I believe that planners should first and foremost be respectful listeners, who facilitate the creation of inclusive places through engaging and integrating the needs and concerns of individuals into the plans and projects that ultimately shape the futures physical and social landscape of a place. At the same time, planners are informants, who provide the public with meaningful information, tools, and expertise that can be utilized to help all individuals and groups collectively flourish. These two roles are somewhat paradoxical, making it difficult to strike a balance between the roles, especially when dealing with contentious issues.

Planning can and should facilitate human flourishing. It takes planners with the aptitude and humility to listen to the public with respect and share their expertise in meaningful non-coercive ways. Additionally, it entails taking a progressive approach, where planners work to dismantle institutional oppression and marginalization, place the value of human voice over state-centric goals and private profit, and create meaningful connections between people and places.

 

Austin Cummings CPW Community Planning Workshop RVTD Rogue Valley Transit DistrictAbout the Author: Austin Cummings is a second year Public Administration student, most recently hailing from the Mississippi Delta. His primary research interests revolve around creating equitable and inclusive cities, social theory, community development, and the connection between urban planning, education policy, and the geography of opportunity. Next year Austin will be pursuing a PhD in Urban Studies at Portland State University. Outside the confines of academia, Austin loves playing guitar and singing- once being described as the songbird of his generation.

Let’s Get Focused

Posted on by Julia Havens

Eugene BRT bus-rapid transit RVTD ROgue Valley Transit District CPW Community Planning Workshop

Using Focus Groups to Understand Attitudes About Bus-Rapid Transit (BRT) in Southern Oregon

Our Community Planning Workshop team (CPW) recently traveled to Southern Oregon University to facilitate our second of five focus groups as part of our community engagement report for Rogue Valley Transportation District (RVTD), which is seeking to better understand public perceptions of transit enhancements.

Focus groups provide the opportunity to gather information from the public in a somewhat organic fashion; they bring people of varying attitudes and backgrounds together to engage in conversation with each other and facilitators. One of the primary causes of disconnect between planners and the public is created by planners’ tendency to concentrate on the future, which—especially in the case of something more technical and abstract, like transit enhancements—can be alleviated through dialogue.

Focus groups help bridge this gap; we are there to ask for their perceptions and opinions, but have the unique opportunity to inform and answer questions—something more difficult to achieve through surveys and interviews. At each focus group, we used renderings from Pivot Architecture to help illustrate some of the enhancements that may be studied for feasibility in the future and asked about different elements that are often incorporated in bus-rapid transit (BRT) systems.

BRT is seen by many transit districts as the most cost-effective way to move people more efficiently than a traditional bus service, borrowing heavily from light rail systems through designated right-of-way and the use of stations (as opposed to the traditional bus stop). The implementation of BRT, however, has been anything but easy for ambitious transit districts in the US, in-part because there are so few systems throughout the country.

Only a small handful of the people we have spoken to throughout the entire engagement process—which includes focus groups, key person interviews, RVTD rider intercept surveys, business surveys, and a community survey—are familiar with BRT, further illustrating the importance of focus groups. Giving citizens the opportunity to converse, ask questions, and see illustrations is crucial in making the potential changes seem less abstract. This, in turn, makes the public outreach process far more useful and informative for both planners and the public.

Should RVTD decide to move forward in the planning process and pursue BRT or any other enhancements, it will be crucial to use similar engagement strategies to avoid the all-too-common divergence that occurs between planners and the public. Our CPW team will provide RVTD with a number of public engagement recommendations at the completion of this project. Results will be made available in July 2014.

 

Bjorn-Griepenburg Rogue Valley Transportation District (RVTD) Community Planning Workshop CPWBjorn Griepenburg is a first year graduate student in Community and Regional Planning from the San Francisco Bay Area. He is interested in the transportation-land use connection and plans to research ways in which cities can better create complete, walkable neighborhoods.