October 15, 2024
By Ryan Earp, Director of Public Engagement and Chhavi Dhingra, Public Engagement Sr Manager, WSB

On April 24, 2024, the Department of Justice (DOJ) updated the rules for Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). These new rule require all websites and mobile applications provided by state and local governments to follow the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1, Level AA standards. This means nearly all public documents, forms, and permits must be made fully accessible to people with disabilities. Depending on population size, they must meet these standards by either April 2026 or 2027.

Benefits for Residents and Cities

Implementing these new ADA requirements can significantly enhance access to information for residents with disabilities, thereby promoting inclusivity. By ensuring digital content is accessible, cities can provide a more equitable experience, allowing all residents to engage fully with municipal services and information. Furthermore, this effort demonstrates a city’s commitment to meeting the diverse needs of its populace, fostering community trust and satisfaction.

Challenges Posed for Cities

Integrating WCAG 2.1, Level AA compliance can present several challenges for municipalities. The requirement involves updating a wide range of digital content, which can be resource-intensive. Cities may need to overhaul existing documents and online resources while also ensuring future content meets the new standards. Additionally, staff must be trained in these accessibility requirements, adding another layer of complexity to the implementation process.

How WSB Can Assist

WSB is certified in ADA communications and offers comprehensive support to help local governments navigate these requirements successfully. Here is how we can help:

• Digital Accessibility Audits: Identify areas where your current communications might not be accessible to individuals with disabilities.
• Accessible Document Creation/Conversion: Make all public-facing documents, including PDFs, PowerPoint presentations, and Word files compatible with screen readers and other assistive technologies.
• Accessible Social Media Messaging: Ensure your social media content includes alt text for images, closed captions for videos, and plain language to make it accessible to all.
• Emergency Communication Planning: Develop strategies to ensure emergency communications are accessible, so all residents receive vital information.
• Public Feedback Mechanisms: Establish channels for individuals with disabilities to offer feedback on accessibility and suggest improvements.
• Vendor Oversight and Compliance: Create checklists or frameworks to collaborate with external vendors helping them adhere to accessibility standards in their digital platform development.

Contact us today for a free initial accessibility audit. We will assess your city’s website and related documents, providing you with an inventory of accessibility needs. This will form the foundation of an action plan for 2025.

*Level AA of the WCAG represents an intermediate level of accessibility, legally required for many websites. It improves upon the basic Level A requirements with an additional 20 criteria aimed at making content adaptable, readable, and easy to navigate for users with various disabilities.

Ryan has worked with a variety of private and public sector clients to develop impactful strategic communications plans and execute stakeholder and community engagement initiatives. Ryan is passionate about integrating emerging tools and technologies to meet stakeholder outreach objectives for our WSB clients.

[email protected] | 320.224.6879

Chhavi is a transportation engineer and public engagement professional with almost 20 years of experience developing sustainable policy, practices, and communication strategies, and leading stakeholder management for transportation and transit projects. She has supported several road transportation planning projects globally while overseeing engagement, multi-stakeholder partnerships and strategic communications focusing on addressing mobility and accessibility needs of disadvantaged communities.

[email protected] | 917.328.3588

June 13, 2024

By Chhavi Dhingra, Senior Public Engagement Manager, WSB

Transportation infrastructure and services serve as a means to various ends, such as facilitating trade, accessing jobs, education, healthcare, or social opportunities. It is essential to place people and goods at the core of all transportation planning and design efforts. As transportation engineers navigate the complexities of planning and designing, balancing considerations like traffic flow, safety, environmental concerns, accessibility, equity and integration of new technologies, they must bridge the gap between designs, materials like concrete and steel, and the people these projects aim to serve. Timely information sharing, inclusive engagement to gather diverse perspectives, and empowering community voices can ensure that transportation projects meet their intended goals and benefit everyone.

In today’s era, cities drive growth and progress, yet there is still much work needed to ensure equitable access to this growth. Underserved communities often face challenges of transportation insecurity like affordability, unreliable commutes, lack of access to transportation options to get where they need to, network connectivity, and issues of transportation-related safety and air and noise pollution. This inequity can lead to negative health impacts, exclusion from education, job, healthcare, commercial and social activities, economic inefficiencies, and urban degradation. In such situations, lack of involvement in transportation planning can further hinder these communities’ quality of life.

Fortunately, public engagement in transportation projects has been evolving and is no longer just a box to check on a project. Latest trends in global research and practice in infrastructure projects place high priority on civic engagement and social accountability, especially when responding to crises like climate change or the Covid-19 pandemic, where behavior change at community levels could result in a massive impact. Moreover, legislation like the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) which are allocating billions of dollars into transportation programs, systems, and infrastructure projects across the country, recognize this as well, and present a huge opportunity for equitable transportation policies and programs to be rolled out by state and local governments. Be it improving transit facilities and experience, re-imagining mobility modes and choices in downtown urban districts or developing infrastructure for vehicle electrification, Governments and communities are now recognizing the need for this pivot, and public engagement best practices demonstrating innovation and public participation are following suit.

Transportation projects are now required to factor in the inclusion of human and environmental factors as part of feasibility assessments. For example, the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) of 1969, requires that federal agencies assess the potential environmental effects of proposed activities in a publicly available report and that the assessment process includes opportunities for public engagement. Given NEPA’s inherently layered institutional design, the level of agency level discretion and the fact that Environmental justice (EJ) itself is an evolving concept, there is a promising opportunity for agencies to enable public engagement to spread its wings fully to bring in a stronger equity focus on transportation projects.

How WSB Can Help

At WSB, we bring diverse professional skills, including those in transportation engineering, planning, public policy, construction management, business administration, and marketing and communications, to bridge the gap between technical designs and the community. We are open-minded learners, constantly evolving our strategies and tactics in consultation with our clients and partners. By allowing public engagement to shape both individual growth and organizational direction, we ensure projects support the needs of the people they serve.

Chhavi is a transportation engineer and public engagement professional with almost 20 years of experience developing sustainable policy, practices, and communication strategies, and leading stakeholder management for transportation and transit projects. She has supported several road transportation planning projects globally while overseeing engagement, multi-stakeholder partnerships and strategic communications focusing on addressing mobility and accessibility needs of disadvantaged communities.

[email protected] | 917.328.3588

June 13, 2024

By Chhavi Dhingra, Senior Manager of Public Engagement, WSB

Transport services play a vital role in meeting essential needs, such as facilitating economic activities such as trade and employment, and ensuring access to vital services like education, healthcare, and leisure. At the heart of all planning and design of such infrastructure lies the vital importance of prioritizing the consumer. Here engineers can play a crucial role in connecting transportation systems with the communities they serve.

There are four wins that early, thoughtful, intentional, and inclusive public engagement could bring to transportation projects.

1. Transparency fosters trust and progress: Helping people understand on a regular basis how and where taxpayers’ money is being spent, goes a long way in building trust and accountability and limits potential future issues that may interrupt the project’s completion.
2. Leaning in on local knowledge and user experience enriches project performance and impact: Improving project performance by gleaning local knowledge residing with community members and learning from past and present experiences of users of a transportation system can help identify and address problems early on and contribute to ensuring long-term success of projects.
3. Inclusion of multiple voices and perspectives enriches project outcomes and acceptability: Possibly one of the biggest wins that public engagement could bring is ensuring transportation projects deliver on their original promises of improved safety, accessibility, mobility, and well-being for all users and become means for communities to together become more prosperous and healthier. This requires a diverse mix of voices, perspectives, and expertise to be brought together to ensure that transportation projects (be it a new road, an improvement to an existing road/junction or the introduction of a new transit or carsharing facility), are accessible to everyone living/traveling to that area.
4. Well-designed engagement could capacitate and empower community leaders and representatives: Proving opportunities for training and skill development for community leaders as part of public engagement strategies, enables them to become catalysts for garnering wide support, removing bottlenecks, ensuring more efficient execution, and developing trusted partnerships between government and communities in projects.

How WSB Can Help

At WSB, we help bring these four wins (and more) when collaborating with clients on various transportation projects. We prioritize successful public engagement through a comprehensive approach. This includes establishing a clear project chain of command to ensure effective stakeholder coordination and information flow. We begin by conducting early stakeholder mapping and needs assessments and collaboratively setting goals with all project stakeholders. We then tailor our communication methods to best suit the audience, ensuring the use of plain language materials, inclusive formats adhering to Americans with Disabilities (ADA) standards, using multiple languages where necessary. Fact-checking, active listening, continuous feedback loops and proper documentation for transparency, are key to our process. We also proactively monitor potential risks to address them swiftly and maintain trust with the public. As we collaborate with our valued clients and partners to successfully deliver transportation projects, our public engagement approach continues to evolve to inform and shape us as professionals, and WSB as an organization that exists to build what is next in infrastructure—the places, spaces and systems that support our lives.

Chhavi is a transportation engineer and public engagement professional with almost 20 years of experience developing sustainable policy, practices, and communication strategies, and leading stakeholder management for transportation and transit projects. She has supported several road transportation planning projects globally while overseeing engagement, multi-stakeholder partnerships and strategic communications focusing on addressing mobility and accessibility needs of disadvantaged communities.

[email protected] | 917.328.3588

By Chhavi Dhingra, Sr Public Engagement Manager and Ryan Earp, Director of Public Engagement, WSB
April 15, 2024

State statute and federal Lead and Copper Rule Revisions require public water systems across Minnesota to identify the materials of all service connections in their distribution systems.

The mandate is clear: cities must identify and replace lead or galvanized steel water service lines to comply with state and federal regulations. Thanks to substantial funding from both state and federal sources, including the recent $240 million appropriation by the 2023 Minnesota Legislature and approx. $40 million a year in federal funds from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the financial resources are available to facilitate this essential task. The success of these initiatives now hinges on the capacities of cities to swiftly and effectively communicate, engage and collaborate with their residents to identify, and then eventually, replace water pipes in residences that are made of lead or contain lead parts. Cities find themselves in a race against time, with a Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) mandated deadline looming to inventory all water system lines by fall 2024. The challenge requires a strategic approach to target and then engage communities effectively.

As cities navigate the complexities of lead service line replacement, they do not have to do it alone. WSB, under its master contract with the MDH, is aiding cities to inventory properties and their water service line materials, perform engagement, communications, and public outreach services to cities for engaging with their residents, and creating and implement plans for pipeline replacement.

Based on our understanding and decades of experience of engaging with communities in Minnesota, we propose a four-part blueprint that cities could embrace to effectively engage with their residents on Lead Service Line Inventory and Replacement:

1. Meet residents where they are: While a fair share of resident homes and their water service line materials are being identified using a combination of historical documents and savvy GIS methods, there are still a large number of ‘unknowns’ i.e. properties where the service lines material are not known to be lead, galvanized requiring replacement, or a non-lead service line, and where there is no documented evidence to indicate the material classification. Traditional methods of communication such as postcards, door hangers, mailers and utility inserts remain indispensable tools for reaching out to such residents. Additionally, leveraging digital platforms, like plain-language and user-friendly websites which carry information and instructions for residents to self-inspect and report their service line material will help accelerate the outreach.
2. Offer spaces and support to help residents address their questions, fears and concerns: Open houses (virtual or in-person) play a vital role in fostering dialogue between residents and city officials. Creating such intentional opportunities for residents to voice their concerns, seek clarification, and actively participate in the process will help build trust and transparency in the city’s efforts. Personalized at-home visits and assistance in identifying service line materials, where residents are not able/willing to conduct the material test themselves, could boost resident participation and drive results.
3. Be heedful to the health equity lens: Cities must make extra efforts to connect with vulnerable populations, such as low-income communities and households with young children who could be at risk of being disproportionately affected by lead exposure. Ensuring that they are not overlooked or marginalized in the communication and replacement efforts, adopt data-driven outreach strategies and culturally sensitive messaging to help bridge the gap and address the unique needs of these populations.
4. Prioritize accessibility and inclusion: Ensuring that language barriers do not hinder access to vital information, providing interpretation and translation services wherever necessary, developing ADA compliant materials and events, could help residents meaningfully engage in the short -term inventory and long-term replacement processes.

In conclusion, the task of replacing lead service lines is not just a technical endeavor—it is a community effort. By prioritizing timely, effective, and inclusive communication, WSB is helping cities mobilize its residents, building trust, and ensuring a community wide effort to create sustainable water infrastructure that provides safe drinking water for all Americans.

Contact us for more information on our communication and engagement service offers for Lead Service Line Inventory.

Chhavi is a transportation engineer and public engagement professional with almost 20 years of experience developing sustainable policy, practices, and communication strategies, and leading stakeholder management for transportation and transit projects. She has supported several road transportation planning projects globally while overseeing engagement, multi-stakeholder partnerships and strategic communications focusing on addressing mobility and accessibility needs of disadvantaged communities.

[email protected] | 917.328.3588

Ryan has worked with a variety of private and public sector clients to develop impactful strategic communications plans and execute stakeholder and community engagement initiatives. Ryan is passionate about integrating emerging tools and technologies to meet stakeholder outreach objectives for our WSB clients.

[email protected] | 320.224.6879

July 17, 2023
By Ryan Earp, Direct of Public Engagement, WSB

There is a growing understanding and belief that the smart cities of tomorrow are not only responsive to the needs of residents but are capable of leveraging data and technology to maximize project outcomes, create efficiencies and improve the overall quality of life for community members. As public engagement and communications professionals, the shift to smart cities has signaled a need to evolve our understanding and approach, including the tools and techniques we use to connect and communicate with community members and stakeholders. With smart cities comes smart public engagement and an understanding that many of the engagement barriers that existed yesterday have been lifted – thanks to continued implementation of available data and technology. Our team is leading and committed to the rapidly evolving development of smart engagement.

When thinking about smart public engagement, there are many opportunities to leverage existing data and technology to engage and communicate with community members more effectively and efficiently. It means harnessing technology to better understand audiences and to shape message and delivery of communications to meet people where they are. This same data and technology can ensure inclusive and equitable engagement, assist in facilitating authentic connections and help to build trust – all while fostering brand, reputation and building sustainable relationships. 

As we continue forward in pursuit of smart cities, we must understand the critical role in which public engagement and communications will play in achieving success and forging ahead in an overall approach to public engagement. Here are three ways community leaders can integrate public engagement in their smart city planning.

Find Opportunities in Technology

The combination of cloud infrastructure, data and geospatial technology like Geographic Information Systems (GIS) is transforming the way in which residents and community stakeholders interact and engage with local governments – empowering community leaders and engagement teams to be more responsive to local needs than ever before. These technologies form a geospatial infrastructure that incorporates data, mapping, analytics, and community feedback to power new ways of engaging and connecting with stakeholders. For example, WSB collaborated with the City of Duluth to develop a Citizen Problem Reporter tool leveraging the city’s investment in geospatial infrastructure. The tool provides residents a 24/7 dashboard to report non-emergency problems such as potholes on a map. It is a smart and simple tool that has improved communication, transparency and relations between community members and local government.

Elevate Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion 

Another GIS resource, Esri’s Community Analyst tool, provides an in-depth understanding of demographic information within a community or project area. Engagement and communication with community members can be tailored and targeted in ways that are more effective and impactful for residents through a better understanding of the spatial nature of demographics such as race, income level, homeownership or internet access. 

Our engagement and communications team approaches all projects with the following core values: build trust, strengthen relationships and embrace equity and diversity. We look for opportunities to engage diverse audiences and community stakeholders who have not traditionally participated in community improvement or civic engagement projects due to a variety of social or political constraints. To support a more inclusive engagement and public input process, we leverage GIS resources and data to inform engagement needs while also providing new and innovative means to obtain feedback from the public using map-driven engagement tools. In doing so, we can better understand our audience, craft project communications and effectively reach underrepresented community stakeholders. Technology and data ensure we are in the right place at the right time.

Think Engagement Early and Often

Considering when and where public engagement enters the project timeline can make or break a project. Involving stakeholder engagement too late in the process may leave projects exposed to unknown risks, stakeholder conflicts and unaware of community needs or priorities.

Our team works to understand who project stakeholders are and builds trust with them every step of a project. By applying these smart engagement practices and others, we can reach more people and craft messaging to inspire participation and deliver successful projects more effectively and efficiently than before. Like smart cities, smart engagement harnesses technology to improve processes including our ability to be responsive, accessible, and communicative to community and project stakeholders.

I could not be more excited about the future of public engagement and where technology takes us next. We look forward to partnering with you to achieve success in your community.

Ryan has worked with a variety of private and public sector clients to develop impactful strategic communications plans and execute stakeholder and community engagement initiatives. Ryan is passionate about integrating emerging tools and technologies to meet stakeholder outreach objectives for our WSB clients.

[email protected] | 320.224.6879

By Brad Hamilton, Director of Public Engagement, WSB

Emerging from the pandemic, there is growing fatigue with virtual communication. In our industry, we are seeing a greater need to be adaptable and flexible in how we communicate with the public about projects. The pandemic allowed innovation in virtual communication spaces, but with many craving real connection, targeted, personalized engagement can build more public trust and support for projects.

Using Personal Touches & Grassroots Connection

For many projects, the best ways to connect with the public is often through more traditional tactics like face-to-face interaction and grassroots style communication. Going door-to-door and talking to people about neighborhood projects is impactful and builds positive relationships with residents.

For transit-related projects, ensuring that people are engaged where they are (bus stops, light rail stations, etc.), means you can effectively communicate how projects will impact riders who actually use the system.

Communicating with Technology

Face-to-face interactions can help build connection and better engage the public, but technology tools enhance those touch points significantly. For instance, while going door-to-door, you can pull out a tablet and show a virtual rendering of what a finalized neighborhood project will look like. You can also do a virtual survey on the spot, so neighborhood residents can share their input in real time. Websites and QR codes allow easy access to project websites as well.

Furthermore, for those still uncomfortable with in person interaction or for convenience reasons, virtual meetings are still an effective way to communicate. Traditional targeted digital messaging – like social media advertising or posting on neighborhood association sites — works as well.

Listening to All Voices

Intentional, thoughtful public engagement builds trust and ensures people understand how projects will impact them before, during construction, and after a project is complete. But most importantly, well done public engagement provides opportunities for all voices to be heard and provide input on projects.  

Too many people in traditionally underserved and underrepresented communities have been cut out of conversations on transportation and infrastructure for far too long. Making sure all voices have a seat at the table ensures that projects benefit residents, improve access, enhance communities, and stop a few loud voices from dominating conversations on projects that impact everyone.

Want to learn more about public engagement and best practices? Brad Hamilton will be speaking at the 2022 League of Minnesota Cities Annual Conference June 22-24 in Duluth, MN. Attend and hear more on how to effectively communicate and build public trust.

Brad’s experience includes strategic development, engagement, facilitation, and relationship building. He led the creation and development of MnDOT’s Liaison Services. Brad facilitated private and public partnerships with Fortune 500 companies for emerging technologies, managed several Agency programs, and worked to advance multiple MnDOT initiatives and policies.

[email protected] | 763.442.3113

By Dan Pfeiffer, Director of Public Engagement, WSB

Spring is rapidly approaching; in Minnesota the snow is melting and talk of spring load restrictions has begun which means the construction season is just around the corner. Now is the time to start thinking about successful project communications and engagement, the first step is planning.

2020 brought out our adaptability showing that we can continue to move projects forward, engage the community, and bring decision-making to the virtual space. The focus on spatially distanced engagement will likely continue through at least the first half of 2021. We are optimistic that the second half of 2021 will bring us together in-person while continuing to offer virtual engagement, including virtual options will encourage increased community participation moving forward.

Develop a Plan

Identify your engagement goals, audience, and messaging before focusing on the tactic or tool you want to use. Your selected tactic or tool is only effective if your audience can use it.

Early and Often

Communicating clear usable messages early and often with the community reduces uncertainty and mitigates anxiety. Develop messages and calls-to-action that your audiences can read, understand, and use the first time they encounter it.

Tools and Techniques

Use tools and techniques that are familiar to your targeted audiences, including the physical space in your community. Even as we’ve all socially distanced in the pandemic, many of us still get out to the parks, trails, and community gathering spaces. Consider including in-place signage along roadways and trails, posters and sidewalk decals at faith institutions, and grocery stores to help inform residents.

In-person Engagement

A critical measure for when to begin in-person engagement, beyond public health official’s guidance, will be our communities themselves. When our communities begin to hold in-person events we should ask to be there with them.

Flexibility

Finally, remember that your communications and engagement program should be monitored and controlled like other project management processes. This allows for controlled changes to the plan to reflect on-the-ground conditions. 

As another construction season approaches, it is necessary to ensure plans are in place for staying connected to our communities. WSB’s team of communications and engagement professionals are ready to support communities through all phases of the project.

Dan has more than ten years’ experience leading teams, as a team leader and operations assistant in the Army, and Minnesota Army National Guard and over eight years in public engagement. He has completed the International Association of Public Participation’s Foundations in Public Participation, the National Transit Institute’s Public Involvement in Transportation Decision-making courses.

[email protected] | 612.394.6037