To:
Residents of the Greater Peoria Region
From:
Eric Miller
Executive Director
Tri-County Regional Planning Commission
Re: Technology Provides Opportunity for Remote Feedback on Region’s Transportation Future
As regional planners, we are asking residents of Greater Peoria to get online and talk transportation. Tri-County Regional Planning Commission (TCRPC) is hosting three online public meetings—and utilizing the public engagement platform MindMixer—to generate ideas and gather valuable feedback as it updates the region’s long-range transportation plan (LRTP). MindMixer is an online engagement tool that provides an opportunity for residents of the region to have meaningful interactions with their leaders and peers.
MindMixer will serve as the companion to three more regional, online “public meetings” taking place at the following times and locations: - May 26, 2020 at 2:00pm
- May 28, 2020 at 5:30pm
- June 3, 2020 at 9:00am
The public meetings, which will be available on https://tricountyrpc.org/documents/lrtp-2045/ will feature a presentation from staff on the LRTP and opportunity for comment. Attendees of the online meetings will be invited to follow up on MindMixer, available at https://tricountyrpc.mindmixer.com.
MindMixer provides opportunities for government and citizens to work together by connecting transportation challenges to community problem-solvers. It allows community members to contribute ideas on their own schedules and at their own pace, allowing for a broader audience to participate.
Greater Peoria area residents can answer the questions in as little as 10 minutes. Respondents can add their own ideas, photos, or videos to tell their story. Participants can see their ideas as well as those from other respondents, and they will know who on the TCRPC team is listening to their feedback and implementing their ideas.
Members of the TCRPC project team will check the site’s progress and find out how many people are engaging. “Public meetings allow for vital input and dialogue about regional transportation issues. COVID-19 has taken away our ability to engage face-to-face with the public for the foreseeable future. That leaves online engagement as our next best approach. We selected a tool that is accessible, transparent, and as user-friendly as possible. Paired with online video meetings, MindMixer was built to meet those requirements,” said Ryan Harms, TCRPC Planner.
The online meetings and MindMixer are directly accessible to anyone with internet access. They are two of the ways TCRPC and the Peoria-Pekin Urbanized Area Transportation Study (PPUATS) hope to maximize public engagement during the stay-at-home order. “TCRPC’s approach to community engagement is to build ongoing, enduring commitments from every sector of the community and advance the Tri-County region,” said Tim Neuhauser, TCRPC’s Chairman. “The feedback we receive through MindMixer will affirm whether our planning process is addressing values and issues that the communities of the Peoria-Pekin urbanized area care about.”
TCRPC provides staffing for PPUATS, which is the metropolitan planning organization (MPO) for the Peoria-Pekin urbanized area. Every five years, the MPO is required to update the LRTP, which includes a unified vision for the region’s transportation system, action items to achieve regional goals, and a listing of all federally-funded transportation infrastructure projects expected for the next 25 years. The draft LRTP is available for public review and comment from May 5, 2020 to June 3, 2020 at https://tricountyrpc.org/documents/lrtp-2045/.
Tri-County Regional Planning Commissioners, planners, and transportation stakeholders thank you for your input and participation in this planning process! |