How do we engage and connect with underrepresented communities to eliminate traffic fatalities in El Paso?
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In September of 2022, the El Paso City Council adopted a resolution acknowledging that everyone has a role in achieving safe streets and calling for eliminating fatalities and serious injuries on our city’s roadways. This resolution was an important milestone for El Paso and the first step in becoming a Vision Zero city.
Vision Zero is a new way of approaching safety. It acknowledges many factors that contribute to safe mobility and uses a safe systems approach to address traffic deaths as a public health crisis. Though everyone is responsible for following the rules of the road and driving, walking, and cycling carefully, mistakes happen. Instead of the traditional approach to safety, our transportation network should be designed so that when mistakes do occur, everyone can walk away safely.
GOALS & CHALLENGES
September 2022 – El Paso City Council unanimously adopted a Vision Zero resolution and initiated community engagement and education to support efforts to adopt a Vision Zero Action Plan.
The timeline to engage the community and create an action plan was tight. However, we wanted to ensure true community feedback was collected by focusing on equitable and genuine efforts and outcomes. The Vision Zero team conducted a multi-faceted process that analyzed qualitative and quantitative data and collected community experiences and feedback. The Vision Zero Action Plan plan balanced the first-hand experiences of our community and the accident data provided through various databases.
APPROACH
Barracuda Public Relations (BPR) coordinated with the City of El Paso and Alta Planning + Design to develop a comprehensive outreach and engagement plan. This plan outlined a multitiered approach, which included public meetings, online and in-person surveys, meeting-in-a-box kits, partnership opportunities and more. Additionally, this plan prioritized underserved communities throughout the city by going to their neighborhoods and empowering them to share their Vision Zero stories in the language they felt most comfortable speaking.
Simultaneously with creating and implementing the outreach and engagement plan, a Vision Zero Task Force was created. The task force was composed of community leaders with expertise in mobility and community empowerment. The members had a wide array of knowledge and experiences that were key to shaping the Vision Zero Action Plan.
During the campaign, BPR assessed the campaign engagement efforts to ensure we reached every region of the city and that the feedback collected was not aligned with any singular demographic or geographic area.
RESULTS
On June 6, 2023, the El Paso City Council unanimously adopted the El Paso Vision Zero Action Plan and committed to pursuing federal funding opportunities to fund critical strategies outlined in the plan.
The Vision Zero Outreach and Engagement plan ensured the Vision Zero Action Plan balanced data and community feedback and experiences. Our approach to engaging a broad audience led to the following successes:
After The City of El Paso adopted their Vision Zero plan, they were awarded a $10 million implementation grant which includes investment in expanding Vision Zero’s Education and Encouragement Campaign