At a Glance
City engineers in Trondheim used Streetmix's open source, drag and drop streetscape visualization tool to facilitate more productive community and leadership engagement, leading to a bypass street redesign that was embraced by all stakeholders.
Problem Addressed
City traffic engineers and planners were responsible for building a new bypass on a main road that would reuse the existing footprint of the street. Locally, there were many different inputs - from political advocates for bike lanes, to community activist groups that wanted to remove cars from the street completely, and resident preferences for the design of bus shelters.
To make the process more challenging, while the community was responsible for the design contributions ultimately the roadway was owned by the county who had to sign off on how the $30 million budget would be used. So the municipality needed a tool to collect feedback and get the community in agreement of how to move forward.
City of Trondheim used/is using an open-source design platform to address this/these challenge(s).
Solution(s) Used
The city planners and engineers decided to use Streetmix over a traditional AutoCAD system because it facilitated more productive discussion among the various stakeholders. Specifically, the team created 2-3 cross sections that provided different options for how the street could be designed that they presented to political leadership and at community meetings. At the town hall sessions, residents could provide specific feedback and even make changes to the design together in real time.
Outcomes
- Shortened the iterative design process with stakeholders to 6-months
- Residents reported greater satisfaction in the process because they were able to engage directly around the pros and cons of various options
- The city saved $100,000 and hundreds of hours using Streetmix. The alternative was an expensive traditional AutoCAD tool.
Something Unique
Over the course of 6-months the city used the free open-source platform to create 10 different iterations of the street design to land on one that was approved.
Who Should Consider?
Any city or county hoping to integrate resident feedback into street-level planning and redevelopment.