During the planning, design and construction phases of the initial 5.2-mile light rail transit project, Garold Smith was a member of the Community Relations staff for the Light Rail Construction department. The task of the Community Relations staff was to construct and implement a comprehensive community outreach and public involvement campaign targeted to specific neighborhoods within the light rail construction area. Mr. Smith participated in all facets of the community relations activities, and in many cases led the initiatives.
In every instance, the public involvement and community outreach efforts highly involved the communities in the planning and development of the project through an extensive program carefully targeted and implemented in a manner that engaged and involved the residents and businesses of affected neighborhoods. In addition, once the construction of the light rail was underway, the strategies evolved into efforts designed to mitigate the impacts of the construction on each community. Community Relations staff worked in tandem with project engineers, construction crews, city and county officials and community stakeholders in both the development and implementation of the plans.
Mr. Smith participated in all activities as outlined in the following summary from Public Involvement Techniques for Transportation Decision-making, which follow.
- Create coloring books to teach children about light rail and rail safety.
- Send out meeting notices to schools for children to take to their parents; provide bilingual educational coloring books as an incentive to attract children who, in turn, involved their parents.
- Use non-engineering personnel to direct the public information process to be certain that technical issues were stated in simple, easy-to-understand language.
- The transit agency broke its long-standing rule of not allowing advertising on shuttle buses in order to promote businesses affected by the transit line construction and inform people about the project.
- Establish a drop-in center in a low-income community through which a light rail line was being built. By being involved with the community and walking along the corridor regularly, the RTD staff was able to answer questions and reduce anxiety about the construction.
- Certain minority and economically disadvantaged neighborhoods, unaccustomed to major construction work, were concerned about upcoming light rail construction. The drop-in center helped a committee of local residents monitor construction.
- Look outside the agency's engineering staff for meeting leaders who were skilled in describing technical issues in non-technical language.
- Conduct walking tours of the corridor for neighborhood residents, many of whom had never been involved in a planning or construction project. Road,
- Place a light rail transit vehicle on display to let people see what it was like and walk through it.
- Invite people to one major investment study meeting held on a trolley.