There are two ways to use the word “engagement.”
The first way is to promise yourself to someone else. To devote yourself to another entirely. To voluntarily betroth your mind, body and soul to a mutually beneficial union that’s meant to last an eternity.
The second way is to declare war. To battle with an enemy. To fight.
If you’re a planner, policy-maker or politician (P3 for short) you already know that part of your job is public engagement. And hopefully you’re using the word “engagement” to mean devotion rather than hostility.
Problem is, honest devotion miscommunicated often leads to war.
The trick isn’t just to devote yourself to the public (though that’s important).
The trick is to communicate and demonstrate that devotion to such a high degree that no one will mistakenly believe your intentions are otherwise.
You can earn the trust and goodwill of people through creative marketing, honest selling and compelling story-telling . . .
Image by flickr user Halina Ward.
. . . or you can alienate the people you’re trying to help by giving them shop-worn, inauthentic clichés and pictures of Snooki in a pantsuit:
"Seriously though . . . if you don't fill out this voluntary survey, I will ruin you."
It’s your choice. Just remember: People may not have the greatest sense of smell, but they can smell artifice a hundred miles away.
5 Comments
For the Burnaby mountain residents, of which I am one, I am not against a gondola system in principle. I am concerned with how it will be delivered. The proposed route of least resistance crosses two conservation areas and directly over two townhouse Strata addresses. The mountain is crossed by petroleum pipelines checked at night by low flying helicopters. I imagine a considerable amount of blasting may be necessary to locate the towers. Trees, of which there are scores of stunning conifers along the route, will undoubtedly be removed. Vehicle access will be required to the towers not only for installation but fire access. One of the strata complexes is a co-op – I imagine they hold the key – if Translink cannot reach an agreement with them and the other strata, compulsory purchase seems unlikely as this location is NOT low cost housing. Speaking as an architect, Translink’s track record for creating aesthetically appealing transit systems in Burnaby, is questionable – I doubt this project will be “beautiful”. For SFU students it seems a great solution. UniverCity, however, has no interest in the project beyond creating a strong marketing tool for a growing, secluded new community. The Gondola image will help drive up UniverCity land prices and few, if any, UniverCity residents will use it. Commuting time by car (if you have a parking space to go to) always trumps transit. I doubt our land values further down the mountain will be positively influenced. The Peak to Peak in Whistler is awesome; it is a tourist attraction – Burnaby mountain is not a tourist attraction and never will be. Apparently the gondola line will move as many people (in capacity per hour) as the Canada Line – the difference, however, is the City of Vancouver would never consider a Gondola let alone another elevated train. The relative cost effectiveness of the system worries me as we may pay for a quick fix, such is life.
The time it takes to reach SFU from the skytrain connection is irrelevant as the end of the skytrain is 40 mins (ish) in each direction. It doesn’t have to compete with the bus travel time if it is to be the only option. This project is deeply flawed from the outset and I am not speaking from a standpoint of NIMBY-ism – Despite being located 30m from my house – the gondola is a good idea. Translink’s God-like attitude is appalling. Projects like this need to be open to public input at feasibility – planners looking at maps do not always make the best decisions let alone those working with private agendas. (no offence intended) Bio- diesel buses using the existing excellent road infrastructure seems a better quick solution for the tax payer until proper work can be done. Planning requires foresight and communities should be linked in harmony. This proposes advancing one community with zero benefit to the community nearest to them. The possibility of a route up the East side of the mountain via a secondary station avoids passing over houses. Longer, yes, but what does that matter? The slope on the East side seems less severe. A spur of skytrain could be explored along the flat part of Gagliardi to a gondola station. Alternatively, is there an opportunity for a mid station which would intercept the other 50% of students arriving by bus from the Hastings Street access?? This project is rushed, inept as your posts have explored and understandably, the natives are restless. Unfortunately only a tiny proportion of Burnaby residents will shout concerns. This will not be enough I fear. Translink needs to know that a grand scheme is not always necessary and they need to be brought to account.
Thank you Steve, an excellent account of the situation. Translink has setup :open houses: to present their only version of a project they are unwilling to discuss and reconsider. There are routes that can be of interest, as well as other technologies (gondola or not) that can allow for a reliable public transportation as same or lower cost.
Besides, there are more pressing and important transit issues in the lower mainland on which Translink should focus: Evergreen line, Broadway corridor, Surrey… These hundreds of thousands of people requires attention now. The few who leave on top of Burnaby mountain can wait (after all they didn’t choose to leave up there to have quick transit to downtown)
Go to Translink website, download the survey, indicate that you “STRONGLY DISAGREE”, add your contact info and send it back to them. Keep a copy: we are collecting them and will provide them to the City of Burnaby to show our position!
I think there are a few things to clarify here:
1. Just because I feel that the process with Burnaby Mountain was deeply flawed, that doesn’t mean I disagree with the line itself.
2. Arguing that this line is invalid because other lines are “more pressing and important” is flawed reasoning. The two are unrelated. This is especially so when comparing the costs involved in something like the Evergreen Line compared to the SFU gondola.
3. As per the process and “open house” issues: I don’t think these issues are unique to Translink. I’d argue that most public agencies have deeply flawed models of community engagement that revolve around pay lip-service to and ensuring conformity with what is typically an unwelcome piece of a policy that says public agencies must engage the public. I wrote this post to be as general as possible.
Yes, I used an image from Translink’s Burnaby Mountain public consultation, but only because it was ‘top of the mind.’ This wasn’t a post about the Burnaby Mountain gondola, nor Translink. It was a post about how we go about the process of community engagement in contemporary North America – a process I believe to be severely lacking in empathy, creativity, openness and honesty.
Steven, I understand you were not specifically writing about the Burnaby Gondola but your post prompted our reaction and we hijacked it. These comments would probably be better suited in the forum thread about the Burnaby Gondola.
I also know that your view is “biased” toward the realisation of such project: after all you advocate urban gondolas on this site.
I disagree though when you say it’s wrong to pitch one project against the other. With very limited finances, Translink has to be extremely careful how it spends its money. 120 millions is a quarter of the money needed to start building the evergreen line (they’ve already secured 800 millions) , so it would go a long way toward building that line. This amount would also be very very useful to bring other projects to life. Furthermore, when I hear the reactions of people elsewhere in Metro Vancouver, it sounds like a lot of them are really opposed to a project that would cost so much for so little benefit.
Another way to see this is: the want to spend 120 millions in order to reduce transit time by about 8 minutes. In Medellin, the time saving was above 2 hours.
I think this is not reasonable. But as I find the idea of an urban gondola interesting, I suggested an alternative route. Please take a look in the forum thread.
Cheers!
Not if it’s a bad project. I’m of the opinion that bad projects can harm “the brand” of urban gondolas. I don’t want to see lunatic urban gondola concepts because that only prevents the technology from being taken seriously in the future. Read through this site fully and you’ll see that we’re pretty objective about our assessments of various urban gondola plans.
As I’ve said before, I’m not a zealot. I like to think of myself not as an advocate of urban gondolas, but as an advocate of thinking differently about planning problems and applying different solutions, ideas and tools to those problems. If this is the right tool for the job, then great. We won’t really know that, however, until we’ve seen the final study.
I disagree though when you say it’s wrong to pitch one project against the other. With very limited finances, Translink has to be extremely careful how it spends its money. 120 millions is a quarter of the money needed to start building the evergreen line (they’ve already secured 800 millions) , so it would go a long way toward building that line.
Two problems with this line of thinking:
a) $120 million is a quarter of the money needed to start building the Evergreen line. In other words: $120 million dollars is no where near enough money to build the Evergreen line, it’s just 1/4 of what’s needed to start it. It wouldn’t go a long way towards building that line at all.
b) The $120 million is not necessarily money that would be available for the Evergreen Line to begin with. As Translink has stated, much of the money that would be available for this project would have to come from senior levels of government by way of grants. The monies available via those grant programs would not necessarily be available to the Evergreen line.
It would be like me giving you a $2.00 coupon to buy chicken with. And remember: The coupon is only good for chicken. Yet you’re telling me that you should be able to use that coupon for steak. Maybe so. Maybe you should be able to use that coupon for steak. I’m not going to argue whether steak is better than chicken or not, but the reality of the situation is that based upon the existing terms of the coupon, you simply cannot use that $2.00 coupon to buy steak, you must use it to buy chicken.
Two problems here:
a) We tend to surround ourselves with people of a similar worldview. We also tend only to hear what we want to hear. Just because it sounds to you like Metro Vancouver is opposed to the idea, that doesn’t mean they are. Granted, they may be. After all, I don’t know everyone in Metro Vancouver. I suspect, however, that you don’t either.
Check out the poll on the Miss 604 Blog and you’ll see what I mean. There, 79% of people support the idea. Does that mean all of Metro Vancouver likes the idea? Of course not. The tiny representative sample of people you hear about does not in any way stand for the opinion of the city as a whole.
b) The benefit issue. What you’ve done here is cherry-pick an issue and tried to make it seem as though only one thing is being considered with this project. This isn’t just about shaving 8 minutes of travel time. It’s also about reduced carbon emissions. It’s also about reducing the number of days SFU is shut down due to bad weather. It’s about reducing traffic on roads. It’s about saving money via operations and maintenance costs over the long term. It’s about drawing attention to transit.