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The Jackson Heights Transportation Portal: A Virtual Public Meeting Space for the Agency and the Community
Why use a portal?
The Jackson Heights Neighborhood Transportation Study is a comprehensive, multi-modal transportation study to address the safety and mobility of pedestrians, transit and vehicles, as well as quality of life issues in Jackson Heights, New York, NY. To support the study, NYC DOT created a transportation portal to present community outreach materials and news updates from the process. Project staff can easily publish news updates and share documents, and community members can easily provide feedback on the proposals. The Jackson Heights site was New York City DOTs first Transportation Portal - an interactive website that acted as a virtual public workshop. On the Portal, community members are able to view all documents, access a calendar of events (and receive RSS feeds whenever the calendar was updated) as well as use the data map and communicate with the project team. The data map featured layers of technical data, such as average speeds, pedestrian and traffic volumes and parking occupancy, that users could turn on or off and even download to analyze on their own. Recommendations for the study were shown by location and type, with improvements shown in slide-show format with text descriptions. The front page of the Portal is reserved for blogtype posts from the Project Manager, which encourage comments from community members and quick responses from the Project Manager.
nyc.gov/dot/projects/
Standard Logo. It is preferred that this version of the logo always be used where practical.
Contact:
Black Logo: Use where color printing is not an option. Ex. Fax Cover Sheet
Neil Freeman. Director, Web and New Media, NYC DOT. 212-839-6468 nfreeman@dot.nyc.gov
Single-Color Green Logo: Use where 2 or 4-color printing is not practical Ex. A brochure printed using a single color (green) White Logo: Use when design circumstances merit the use of an all-white logo. Ex. Logo must be placed over a dark background.
Low-resoultion versions available for download on the Creative Services section of the DOT Intranet. For High-resolution versions, contact Creative Services.
Other portals
NYC DOT used the portals framework to create three more sites. Bike Share
nyc.gov/bikeshare
Recommendations
The proposals for Jackson Heights are presented as slideshows, with key features of each proposal highlighted and described in the text underneath. The proposals are grouped by location and type - so visitors can explore all proposals for a particular intersection, or all aspects of proposals relating to pedestrian safety. Visitors can comment on the proposals, helping NYC DOT to collect additional feedback.
NYC DOT created an interactive map to gather public input on suitable locations for the Bike Share program, coming to NYCs streets in summer 2012. The site included an interactive map, making it easy to drop a pin on the map where youd like to see a bike share station. Visitors can share locations and leave comments.
Open source
The portal is built on an open source publishing framework, and is itself also open source. This permits the greatest re-use, and enables NYC DOT to benefit from future improvements by other users. The portals run on Wordpress, a widely-used content publishing framework. Using Wordpress makes it easy to add new features by including existing plugins. The tools built into Wordpress for styling and arranging content made it possible to develop and extend the portals over time as NYC DOTs needs changed. OpenPlans open source theme is called PlanningPress. Find out more at openplans.org/projects/ planningpress
Although the proposals are presented as an interactive slideshow, the print version of the pages lays out each slide of the slideshow with the written description presented below it. This feature was added in response to feedback from user testing with community members.
The website runs on an open source publishing framework, created by OpenPlans, a nonprofit software development group working in close consultation with NYC DOT. By choosing to support an open source software project, NYC DOT can benefit from future enhancements to the platform. In addition to the Jackson Heights project, the portals have been used for three other studies, including gathering public input on station siting for NYCs bike share program.
Front page
The overall site theme matches the NYC DOT web look and feel The side bar and flexible front page can be reconfigured by project staff as the needs of the project change, for example adding banners, photos, featured comments, and summaries of recent comments. Pages and sub-pages can be added and removed from the menu.
The Study is also the first implementation of the Neighborhood Transportation Study approach, based on a community-driven process and shortterm treatments that are meant to be implemented within 1 year of the completion of the Study. In addition, the Study constantly reinforced a commitment to the neighborhood to monitor these treatments and adjust as necessary.
In Manhattans Chinatown, NYC DOT and partner organizations have developed a study plan to address parking conditions through community outreach and coordination. The portal presents progress on the study, and will be used to gather information about local conditions and feedback on proposals.
Project background
Jackson Heights, Queens is a diverse and vibrant neighborhood in Northern Queens, containing historic areas and residential streets as well as the Jackson Heights Shopping District. The Shopping District serves as a local and regional retail and dining destination with a considerable amount of vehicular and pedestrian activity. Local residents and merchants asked DOT to explore changes that can help create safer, less congested streets and better transit access for this vibrant community. Building on previous work performed by the NYC DOT and the community, the Transportation Study is envisioned as Phase 1 of a two phase study to comprehensively address transportation issues in Jackson Heights. Phase 1 will focus on short-term improvements, e.g. changes to curbside regulations, traffic signals and temporary markings, while Phase 2 will focus on longerterm improvements that would require intensive analysis, capital commitment or major coordination with agencies other than NYC DOT. Phase 1 of the study is paid for by City and Federal funds, secured in part by Congressman Joseph Crowley.
Timeline
The timeline answers those common questions about long-running community outreach projects: whats happened? whats coming next? NYC DOT staff can easily add new items to the timeline, and choose to show specific dates (e.g. a meeting) or phases (e.g. ongoing work throughout the Spring).
The Brooklyn Waterfront Greenway is a proposed 14-mile pedestrian and bicycle trail, intended to increase access to the waterfront, improve pedestrian and bicycle safety, and connect the numerous public open spaces along the waterfront. The portal presents news updates on public outreach, and an interactive map of the route options.