What is the right amount of public input and involvement when planning and implementing project? is the question framing a blog post I wrote last year.

That post was also — if my memory serves — the first time this blog prompted disagreement from a sitting member of City Council. It was a cordial conversation. I just share that detail to convey how fraught this topic can be, particularly given that my question proposes that there may be downsides to "too much" public input (as well as downsides to "too little").

The August 28 meeting of the Alameda city Transportation Commission (TC) provided examples of the "tiny bear" and the "giant bear" of public engagement in transportation improvements:

The "big giant bear " of City of Alameda public engagement re its Neighborhood Greenways

City staff brought to the TC meeting an "Update on Neighborhood Greenways Implementation and Slow Streets Barricade Removal."

I normally print out the entire agenda packet in advance of each TC meeting so I can read and scribble on the staff reports and attachments. But I skipped printing the 206 pages of community survey results attached to this agenda item.

I won't characterize other TC members' comments on this agenda item. But I will characterize the verbal public comments as falling into three general buckets:

• Comments in opposition that have already been made in similar form at previous stages of development of the Slow Streets, Active Transportation Plan, and Neighborhood Greenways programs.
• Comments in support that have already been made in similar form at previous stages of development.
• Residents on designated Neighborhood Greenways with extremely specific requests or concerns about extremely specific locations.

To be frank, the general public and the appointed members of the TC probably did not surface significantly new feelings/thoughts/worries/enthusiasms about Neighborhood Greenways. And to the very location-specific concerns of the 3rd subset of commenters, staff and the TC didn't have anything to offer — not out of a lack of interest, but because the city has yet to reach the planned milestone in the NG program of having specific designs for any corridors.

Staff will next bring this update to City Council on September 17. No doubt that at least one councilmember will be ready to "re-litigate" the entire program. Aside from reactionary opposition, staff would do well to think carefully about what is the purpose of this current phase of public engagement. What is meaningful progress since the last set of public meetings that should be shared with City Council? And on what topics do staff and the consultants simply need to get more work finished before actually having a meaningful update that warrants public input?

The "little itty bitty bear" of Caltrans public engagement re its Otis Drive project

Since the August 28 TC meeting, I've been getting emails asking where Alameda residents can direct their disagreement and frustration with Caltrans's plans for Otis Drive.

Commenters have also added some thoughtful and informative and frustrated comments to this blog's posts on Aug 31 and Sept 3 (including informative comments from Robert Prinz of Bike East Bay). But this is just a random blog with a comment section. Where can Alameda residents have their concerns actually heard about Otis Drive?

The August 28 TC meeting was the only public meeting in Alameda about this Caltrans project.

The project initiation document (PID) was prepared by Caltrans staff in 2019. [Have you seen the PID? I haven't, despite multiple requests via City of Alameda staff to Caltrans staff, and directly to Caltrans staff.] And now it's 5 years later, with Caltrans coming to Alameda for that single public meeting. At this meeting, Caltrans staff presented complete engineering diagrams and said they are racing against their end-of-fiscal-year deadline (June 30, 2025) to spend the money internally allocated to this project.

What a pitifully small amount of public engagement for this project, with an approximately $20 million budget, and a projected lifetime lasting to the year 2037.

The three Caltrans staffers dispatched to Alameda City Hall on the evening of August 28 were just doing their assigned jobs. But the leadership of Caltrans District 4 should ask themselves and their teams if this is how they want their agency to be known to the general public in Alameda — as an agency closed completely to meaningful public participation.

Is there a "just-right" amount of public engagement?

In school, I was intrigued by more philosophical questions like the Goldilocks zone of the "just right" amount of public engagement for urban and transportation planning projects. These days, my goal is instead to write a blog about improving the city where my family, friends, acquaintances, tens of thousands of strangers, and I live.

Each project will probably need to be seasoned to taste with an context-specific amount of public engagement. And perhaps even more important that than the absolute amount may be the timing of that public engagement. Does it come perhaps in too much volume and too frequently to make meaningful progress (as in Alameda's Neighborhood Greenways)? Or is public engagement too limited and too late to make any meaningful difference (as in Caltrans's Otis Drive project)?