Springfield Main Street Safety Project: First round of community engagement complete
The first round of engagement introduced the project to the community and gathered feedback about safety concerns, existing conditions, and community priorities to be considered as the project team develops alternative solutions to address safety problems on Main Street. The community input gathered will build upon previous outreach and will inform the creation of goals and objectives in the next step of the Main Street Safety Project. The first round of community engagement activities reached over 2,000 people through several mechanisms. For activity details go to http://mainstreetsafety.org.
Project Values
As part of the community engagement participants were invited to weigh in on and rate the importance of each of the following values to them and identify key areas of concern related to the project area:
- Safety
- Local Business Access
- Traffic Mobility
- Cost
- Main Street Character
- Transit
Take-a-Ways
The project team heard diverse opinions and while still in the process of compiling, summarizing, and analyzing the community feedback, a key theme emerging is that across all interests’ safety is by far the most resonant value. Business access and traffic mobility also appear to be important factors, so goals and objectives developed in this process should reflect those values. The feedback also suggests the value statements may need to be adjusted to broaden their scope.
Next Steps
The project team has been seeking feedback from the community on the draft goals and objectives this spring. At the March 12th meeting of the Chamber’s Government Issues Subcommittee, the project team provided an overview of the project plus the draft goals and objectives. Each of the project values are covered in the draft goals and objectives. The subcommittee focused their feedback on values related to the local business community on Main Street but also gave feedback on safety, feasibility, and cost. After the project team has completed all scheduled presentations, feedback collected will be used to refine the draft goals and objectives that will go on to the Springfield City Council for approval.
For additional information please visit http://mainstreetsafety.org.
