How to Engage with Public Engagement

If you want to shape Active Transportation in your community but don’t know where to start, this guide is for you.

Public engagement can be a powerful tool for change, but the process can be confusing or intimidating for people just getting started.

This guide will cover: 

  • What policy documents lay the foundation for Active Transportation work? 

  • How do lines on a map become finished infrastructure? 

  • How can I engage with each step of the design process? 

What documents lay the foundation for Active Transportation work? 

 

Land Acknowledgement 

This guide was compiled in Kjipuktuk for communities in Mi'kma'ki. 

Mi'kma'ki is the unceded and unsurrendered traditional territory of the L’nu (Mi’kmaq) people, who have stewarded these lands since time immemorial. It is with gratitude for the stewards of the past and the Traditional Knowledge Keepers of the present that we work together to steward the land for future generations, in the face of rapidly accelerating climate change. 

Treaties

Mi'kma'ki is covered by the Peace and Friendship Treaties that defined what was to be an ongoing relationship between Indigenous (Mi'kmaq, Wolastoqiyik and Passamaquoddy) and settler peoples for sharing the lands and the sustenance it provides. 

Unlike other Treaties in Canada, the Peace and Friendship Treaties did not involve any exchange of land. 

Active Transportation involves the intentional sharing of land for all peoples, and people of all ages and abilities, to move with dignity and independence, for the well-being of individuals, communities, and the environment that sustains us all. 

We are all treaty people. 

Municipal Government Act 

The Municipal Government Act (MGA) is the provincial policy document that defines the responsibilities and abilities of municipal governments within the province. Most Canadian provinces have a similar act, often with a similar name.  

Municipal governments only have the abilities granted to them by their province’s MGA. 

Sometimes the MGA needs to be amended with enabling language to let municipalities use newer tools for road safety (like red light cameras) or newer types of Active Transportation infrastructure (like traffic lights for bikes). 

Municipal Planning Strategies 

A Municipal Planning Strategy (MPS) outlines a municipality’s long-term goals, and the directions to be followed over a 10-20+ year timeline to meet those goals. These directions are specific enough to put into action, but broad enough to adapt to unexpected changes over time.  

For example, an MPS might set goals for local food production (food security) and include directions like supporting the creation of more community gardens or developing a by-law that allows people to keep backyard hens. The directions would not include specific locations for community gardens or specific rules for backyard hens, but rather identify ways the municipality can work towards increasing local food production and improving the community’s food security. 

Land Use By-Laws 

Land Use By-Laws (LUBs) define what is and is not allowed on each parcel of land they cover. 
Some municipalities are small enough to be covered by a single LUB, while larger (regional) municipalities may have different LUBs for different areas. LUBs can define: 

  • What types of housing, businesses, or industrial uses are allowed or prohibited 

  • Maximum building heights and floor area 

  • Minimum distance between buildings and the front, back, or sides of a lot 

  • Minimum parking requirements – for cars AND bikes 

Secondary Plans 

Secondary Plans add more detail to a specific topic or geographic area in a Municipal Planning Strategy. 

Active Transportation Plans are a type of Secondary Plan, focusing on non-vehicular transportation. 

Active Transportation Plans 

Active Transportation Plans present a community’s vision for a connected network of pedestrian, bike, and other non-vehicular transportation infrastructure, based on input from the community. Without a vision for a connected network, communities build fragments of infrastructure that do not connect to provide safe routes. Network design ensures that each new infrastructure project built adds more connectivity to the existing network – making more trips possible for more people to more destinations. 

However, a network design does not have the level of detail needed to begin building. 

Pieces of the network go through Preliminary, Functional, and Detailed Design before construction. 

How can I engage at this stage? 

  • Explore your community’s website for engagement materials and public engagement events. 

  • Share engagement materials with community members or groups who may be interested. 

  • Invite anyone you think should be at the table to come to public engagement events. 

  • Attend public engagement sessions and workshops, whether online or in-person. 

  • Write your feedback, in surveys, comment cards, or emails to ensure it is included. 

Preliminary Design

Turning a line on a map into shovel-ready construction drawings is a long process, but it starts with understanding how to adapt the design process to the community’s needs, concerns, and ideas. 

The focus of this stage is outreach – meeting with as much of the community as possible, to ensure that the planners and engineers have enough information from the community to start designing. 

Public engagement materials can include maps from the Network Design stage, photos of infrastructure in other communities to show examples of what types of options exist, and large detailed maps of current conditions.  

Concept drawings are not usually presented at this stage, because the planners and engineers do not yet have enough information – the Preliminary Design stage is about gathering such information. 

Really big projects may present early renderings or concept drawings to show the scale of change possible, but only as a reference for collecting feedback. No designs at this stage are final. 

How can I engage at this stage? 

  • Explore your community’s website for engagement materials and public engagement events. 

  • Share engagement materials with community members or groups who may be interested. 

  • Invite anyone you think should be at the table to come to public engagement events. 

  • Attend public engagement sessions and workshops, whether online or in-person. 

  • Write your feedback, in surveys, comment cards, or emails to ensure it is included. 

Functional Design 

The Functional Design stage is about identifying all the functions the finished infrastructure needs to include, and how best to fit all the necessary functions into the space available – in a way that is safe, accessible, and intuitive. Functions include both allowing intended uses and preventing unwanted uses. 

Unwanted uses may include: 

  • Preventing vehicles from traveling at unsafe speeds 

  • Preventing parked vehicles from blocking crosswalks 

  • Preventing vehicles from driving the wrong way on one-way streets 

Intended uses may include: 

  • Short-term parking for pick-up and drop-off of people and goods 

  • Bike parking and Bike-Share docking stations 

  • Places for people to sit and rest 

  • Bioswales or rain gardens to manage rainwater 

Concept designs are typically presented through three types of views: 

  • Cross-sections – how much of the street width is for pedestrians, bikes, vehicles, and utility lines 

  • Top-Down/Plan View – how functions fit together within the footprint of the space available. 

  • Renders – specific angles that show how components work together within 3D space. 

Public engagement materials usually include a few concept designs that each focus on a single component or theme.
The idea is to present extremes and get feedback on designing a middle ground. 

For example, a sidewalk project might have one concept design with as many places to sit as possible, and another concept design with as many street trees and planters as possible. The public is not limited to choosing between these two options, the options are presented to spark feedback for refining the design. By presenting every possible spot for trees and benches, the public responds with whether trees or seats make more sense for each possible spot, and the designers can find the balance the community thinks will work. 

For narrow streets, the concept designs presented may include every possible arrangement of the street’s cross section. Not every possible arrangement is presented as a recommendation, sometimes a concept is presented to show the idea has been considered and to visualize why it is not recommended. 

The Functional Design stage often includes a few rounds of engagement, refining the design each time. 
“What We Heard” reports are typically released between rounds of engagement to show what feedback people provided, and how the feedback was used to refine the designs presented. 

How can I engage at this stage? 

  • Read the “What We Heard” report to see how your feedback was included in designs. 

  • Document current conditions, by organizing or attending mobility audits. 

  • Explore designs and design guidelines from around the world (like NACTO). 

  • Create your own mockups, using tools like streetmix.net if you don’t like to draw. 

Detail Design 

After identifying all the necessary functions and how they will fit together within the space available, engineers refine the Functional Design into shovel-ready construction blueprints – identifying how to build the Functional Design, and beginning to understand how much it will cost to build.  

There is usually no public engagement at this stage, because this stage involves specialists working out the precise details of bringing the Functional Design to life. For example: 

If public engagement on a Functional Design suggests building a bridge over water for a more direct path – engineers working on the Detail Design are responsible for designing a bridge that is structurally sound, built on a stable foundation and able to carry the weight of an ambulance in case of emergency. 

If public engagement on a Functional Design suggests a speed bump to slow vehicle traffic near an elementary school – engineers working on the Detail Design will identify the precise location, specific materials to use, how to install/construct the speed bump, and how to maintain it over its lifespan. 

If public engagement on a Functional Design suggests a rain garden to manage stormwater – engineers working on the Detail Design will identify how much stormwater the rain garden needs to absorb, what volume of soil is needed, what plants would work together within the space available, and how to prevent the plants’ roots from interacting with utility lines or building foundations. 

How can I engage at this stage? 

Formal public engagement at the Detail Design stage is rare, but public pressure is often needed to make sure a project gets funding for construction. Here are some ways to engage informally: 

  • Read your local government’s budget, to see what cost-share your community can afford. 

  • Write your Councilor, MLA, and/or MP, and ask to fund important infrastructure in their district 

  • Explore provincial and federal funding opportunities to share construction costs. 

  • Attend budget meetings, speak up to keep construction funding on the agenda.  

  • Search the province’s procurement portal to see if the construction contract has been posted.