One of the most popular events at our annual Designing Cities Conference, the Meet the Cities poster session gives every NACTO member agency the opportunity to share their projects, successes, and works-in-progress with their peers. Arlington prepared the content below for its 2025 Meet the Cities poster.
Integrating Community Input from Planning to Construction
How to Move Beyond the Meeting
- Ask thoughtful questions: ask questions you can use the answer to
- Build relationships: create lasting connections across the county
- Create feedback loops: share back what you heard and how you use it
- Be visible: meet people where they already are
- Offer information: use engagement to educate
LONG-RANGE PLANNING: ARLINGTON’S TRANSPORTATION FUTURE
Arlington’s Transportation Future used a wide variety of in-person and online engagement methods to establish community values at the onset of the development of a refreshed long-range transportation plan.
We asked:
- How do people travel today?
- How would people like to travel in the future?
- What is our shared vision for transportation in Arlington?
MAINTENANCE PLANNING: REPAVING N. LYNN ST.
The Resurfacing for Complete Streets process implements tactical improvements during routine street resurfacing. Through a multi-step engagement process, we changed N. Lynn St in Rosslyn from a four-lane road with a painted bike lane to a three-lane road with a parking-protected bike lane within the 2024 paving season.
- We ask the community to identify challenges on the existing street.
- First round feedback shapes concept designs, which we share for a second round of feedback.
- Second round feedback informs the final design, installed via repaving.
PROGRAMS: VISION ZERO ANNUAL SAFETY FEEDBACK
Arlington County hosts an annual longitudinal 10-question survey and clickable map to help us track how the Vision Zero initiative is changing perceptions of transportation safety in Arlington and learn more about community-identified issues.
We use the annual safety engagement to share updates from the Vision Zero Annual Report and StoryMap so the community stays connected to Vision Zero.
ACTIVE PROJECT CONSTRUCTION: COLUMBIA PIKE FORWARD
Managing community expectations during a large, multi-year construction project requires an all-of-the-above approach. We invested in project branding, conducted routine pop-ups, worked directly with businesses, and built community partnerships to share timely information about current and upcoming construction impacts.
This multi-faceted approach ensures that a diverse audience receives repeated, consistent, and easy-to-understand information about the construction schedule, impacts, and benefits.
Arlington’s top outreach methods:
- In-Person:
- Strategic pop-up events. Consider locations such as affordable housing developments, older adult communities, high schools, and food distribution centers. Bring giveaways!
- Canvassing
- Listening sessions
- Stakeholder groups
- Open houses (near the project!)
- Physical Materials:
- In-street signage: Yard signs, flyers, sidewalk stickers
- Mail-in feedback forms are available at libraries
- Virtual Materials:
- StoryMaps
- Videos / prerecorded meetings
- Online feedback forms
- Fact sheets (keep it simple!)
- Paid ads in local news or targeted social media
- Always have translations and interpreters!
Check out all of the posters from Meet the Cities 2025.
