As we reported last month, the Oregon Department of Transportation is holding “listening sessions” throughout the state to gather input for a major update to their Bicycle and Pedestrian Modal Plan.
Unfortunately there are only five meetings total, just one in the Portland area, and they’re all held during business hours. If you want to share input but can’t make it to one of the meetings, ODOT has launched a website that lets you do so completely online.
ODOT says the Virtual Listening Meeting is the next best thing to showing up in person.
Visitors to the online open house are given a comprehensive introduction to the plan that explains its context and a timeline development and completion. They’ve also uploaded a presentation (in YouTube video form) that shares what they’ve learned so far. As a foundation for this plan update, ODOT has reviewed dozens of local and regional planning documents and has analyzed existing biking and walking data. You can watch the presentation below:
The most interesting slide (in our opinion) from the presentation shows that some of their “key findings” include that “economic vitality as related to tourism” is an “emerging topic.” Also singled out are the topics of equity and health.
The final part of the virtual meeting is an online survey where they ask the same questions asked of attendees at the listening sessions. In the survey, ODOT asks for your top safety priorities, how to improve connectivity, and asks an open-ended questions about what other topics should be on their radar.
ODOT is currently in Phase II of this planning process where they’re developing policies and strategies based on public input. Phase III, which is to develop the plan, is scheduled to happen in December 2015. Learn more about take the survey on the ODOT website.
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I don’t see any indication of a deadline to submit comments or take the online survey. Do you know when that is?
Only those who’ve worked in large Enterprise IT know the sinking feeling you get when a website asks for permission to load the “Sharepoint” plug-in. Sharepoint is the absolute worst and an industry laughing-stock. I hate to imagine the wasted hours of taxpayer-funded labor that have been squandered by folk looking for disappearing documents in the gaping maw of SP’s oblivion engine.