Greater City ProvidenceFrom the Rhode Island Division of Planning:
August is shaping up to be an exciting month for Rhode Island!
Rhode Island residents have an opportunity to shape the state’s future through RhodeMap RI, an initiative to develop a statewide, integrated plan to create a better place for all Rhode Islanders. The state, in collaboration with public and community leaders, is seeking answers to basic questions about what we want for Rhode Island. A series a regional forums kicks off next week, providing the public with a chance to talk about their ideas and personal experiences of living and working in the state.
Learn more about this exciting initiative and provide your input:
Northern RI
Woonsocket Depot • One Depot Square • Woonsocket
Monday, August 5
East Bay
Roger Williams University • Global Heritage Hall • One Old Ferry Road • Bristol
Tuesday, August 6
South County
University of RI • Memorial Student Union • 45 Upper College Road • Kingston
Wednesday, August 7
Providence Metro
East Providence Senior Center • 610 Waterman Avenue • East Providence
Thursday, August 8
No registration required; light refreshments will be available.
All Regional Forums run from 5-9pm
For more information contact Melanie Army, Supervising Planner at Rhode Island Division of Planning, or call 401-222-6183. Visit the Rhode Map RI website to learn more.
Jef Nickerson
They seriously couldn’t put at least one in Providence proper? Or God, if you’re going to go with a suburb, do Pawtucket. I can’t imagine that location could draw the necessary number of transit users or cyclists to put together a good voice for alternative transportation.
*Sigh*
I need only look to the words “Powered by Mindmixer” to know that these events are going to have an absurdly high noise-to-content ratio and frankly, I’d be stunned to find out that absolutely anything of objective value was produced by the effort.
This isn’t at all like the RIPTA COA effort, nor is it a chance to turn out in support or opposition to any specific actions being taken by any given group. This is a chance to add to the noise in a chorus of people clamoring for better transportation – and sure, that’s valuable, but only as volume and statistics. This isn’t a content-producing exercise and it isn’t going to provide anything substantial in terms of results.
Hell, posting on Greater City Providence is more liable to get noticed and generate an impact than having your idea filed away on a website powered by Mindmixer to ultimately be presented to some study commission as “James from Providence’s Idea” on page 3 of some 37-page printout.
I’m being extremely cynical here, I get that, but I honestly don’t think that anything anybody says at any of these forums is going to get anyone to sit up and take notice. That’s not what this is about.
That having been said, I’ll probably go to the URI one to gauge the public reaction anyway.
PS: Even Connecticut, also engaged in a “Powered by Mindmixer” public opinion gathering effort, at least had the foresight to focus Transform CT on transportation issues only. I sincerely doubt that Transform CT will produce results either, but at least there I can see the goal of trying to highlight areas in need of improvement with regards to transportation infrastructure, and I’d be less surprised to find the tremendous amounts of volume on http://www.transformct.org/ get turned into usable statistics suggesting overall support for investment into specific aspects of the transportation network in CT.