Yesterday was the city’s internal kick off meeting for the EN TRIPS process. It was the first time all the city’s consultants – Nelson\Nygaard, Fehr & Peers, CD+A, and Turnstone Consulting, were able to meet and go over the 18 month plan for EN TRIPS.
Urban Ecology was there to explain to the city’s team our role of community advocate. We will be providing qualitative community input through out EN TRIPS, while bringing folks to the city’s official workshops to give feedback on the quantitative data. Our work will be beneficial to the city’s process, yet we will be ensuring that the people that live in these neighborhoods have an influential voice at each step.
A main point at this meeting was made that EN TRIPS is a implementation process, designed to get key projects built. Though Urban Ecology is casting a wide net for transportation improvement ideas – to collect ideas that slipped through the cracks during other planning processes – only a handful of projects will get chosen and made tangible. We will make sure that those chosen few are community selected, not developer determined.