A city road project was analyzed to understand the sustainability implications to a changing transportation system with goals to move toward better infrastructure and more easily accessible routes to schools. This will, in turn, encourage alternative transportation means and a positive impact on the city. However, in order for this to happen the city needs to understand that not only do they need to work on the infrastructure but they also need to create a better relationship with the community so that they (the community) can better understand and utilize the changes made by the city. One way to improve this is to seek more community engagement. Since most of the projects that the City of Salinas is working on to improve infrastructure are happening closer to schools, one of the intentions of the construction is to allow children greater access to bike and walk to and from school. Some advice would be to create better communication with the school district and provide them with the tools to share the information of projects and how they are going to benefit from them. Schools can get involved by communicating with parents during drop off and pick up hours or even sending home flyers that require a signature stating that the parent has read the information. The flyer can even have a question section that allows parents to ask questions on the flyer and have them sent directly back to the city. Another method that the city should consider is social media. It was found that the City of Salinas is not utilizing social media enough to reach the community. And with social media growing, by taking advantage of such an easy way to reach people the city might have greater community engagement. Live streaming and recordings of community meetings would be another way to include parents with conflicts. Online conversation platforms could also allow for public comment without specific meeting attendance.
Read the final student report delivered to the local gov/community partner.
Sustainable City Years Program Contact Info
University Faculty Contact
Daniel Fernandez
Natural Sciences
Professor, School of Natural Sciences
dfernandez@csumb.edu
Local Government / Community Contact
Victor Gutierrez