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Route 367 Design
Project for the Missouri Department of Transportation
Challenge
Route 367 in north St. Louis County is a nine-mile
highway that suffers from congestion, a lack of accessibility and
numerous traffic accidents. For nearly twenty years, the Missouri
Department of Transportation tried to get citizens to approve changes
to the highway, but was unsuccessful. With growing concern for motorists’
safety, the agency decided to try one last time to engage the community
around upgrading Route
367.
Action
To ensure citizen participation in the design
phase, Vector conducted public open houses, focus groups, stakeholder
interviews and community presentations; created and managed the project’s
community advisory group; wrote and designed newsletters and a project
web site; and distributed mass mailings to area households and businesses.
We also designed a kiosk that was on display for more than two years
at a mall within the corridor. Once every two weeks, we manned the
kiosk to answer residents’ questions and to create a presence
for the project in the community. When it came time to designing the
look of the route’s bridge overpasses, Vector put together a
citizens’ aesthetic advisory team that worked closely with the
design engineers to create a look that enhanced the community.

Result
Vector’s community outreach activities
neutralized the underlying negative sentiment and increased citizen
understanding of the importance and need for highway improvements.
Various grassroots, civic and business organizations, along with residents,
have now come together to support the project as one unified group.
As a result in 2003, Route 367 was the only new corridor approved
for funding by East-West Gateway Coordinating Council in its Transportation
Improvement Program. |
Vector
Communications Corporation
701 North 15th Street
Mailbox 43
St. Louis, MO 63103
A certified M/W/DBE |
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