As we focus on community engagement in this issue of ITE Journal, I want to start out with the famous Mark Twain quote, “action speaks louder than words but not nearly as often.” How many of you read that and didn’t realize the full quote includes “but not nearly as often?” I’ll admit that I am most familiar with just the front end of that quote and had to dig a little online to expand my understanding.
The first part is straight forward—it means that action can accomplish more than words. The second part, which Twain added, points out that although action is more forceful, speech occurs far more often. So, what the heck does this historical English lesson have to do with the theme of this month’s Journal? For starters, it underscores some of our societal deficiencies to talk about a problem, but not take action to solve it. It also is demonstrated occasionally in transportation projects where the team will include community engagement as part of the effort but spend more time talking than listening—more time talking than actually taking action.
Fortunately, that trend is diminishing, and more and more transportation projects are truly engaging with local communities and considering people-centered planning and engineering rather than simply remaining focused on vehicle throughput.
Transportation professionals today recognize the many benefits of more engagement at all stages of the projects and are making the effort to do better. At our 2023 Annual Meeting in Portland, OR, USA, last year, the overall theme was “Connecting People and Communities.” We had a plenary session that spent 90 minutes focusing solely on the diverse impacts and benefits of better community engagement. And there were quite a few sessions that explored the opportunities for more informed decisions, increased public support, more inclusive cities, and better transportation equity that are enabled by a thorough community engagement effort. We are talking about it, we are starting to make change, but are there still gaps? Are there still actions that can be taken that will indeed speak louder than words? Absolutely.
Public involvement can’t be an afterthought. Engaging the public early and often is necessary and should be baked into the project plan from its earliest conceptual stages. Context matters. I have spilled a lot of ink in this monthly column over the past year talking about context and the fact that one-size-fits-all solutions are becoming more and more rare as our society and use of transportation mobility evolves. Bottom-Up and Top-Down are both important. There is value in talking to policymakers and leaders of a community; but equal value in talking to their constituents directly. Make the effort to have a 360-degree engagement plan that listens to many different voices. Explore but balance new tools—in our post-COVID environment we have changed the way we meet and interact as professionals—especially utilizing virtual tools. The same can be employed with community engagement. Don’t rely solely on public meetings, but don’t rely solely on virtual tools either—it’s all about finding a balance.
These are all fairly common-sense suggestions, and I’m willing to bet I’m educating very few of you to their potential benefit. But I hope that I am instead REMINDING you of their existence and ENCOURAGING you to lean into them. Next time you are involved in a transportation project, don’t let the words be your only output—take action!