The Ubiquity and Limits of Digital Technology in Local Civic Engagement
Our Co-Chairs Steven L. Johnson and Matthew Gillikin contributed a short essay to a collection called Digital Democracy from Below: Resisting AI and Techno-solutionism, which emerged out of a workshop held by UVA’s Digital Technology for Democracy Lab earlier this year. Their essay describes some of their experiences with engaging with digital technology in Livable Cville’s advocacy work and is shared below. You can read through the entire collection of essays here.
The Ubiquity and Limits of Digital Technology in Local Civic Engagement
The iconic 1943 Norman Rockwell painting, Freedom of Speech depicts an idealized moment of participatory democracy in the United States: a working-class man speaking out at an annual town budget meeting, capturing the attention of well-dressed audience members sitting nearby. While moments like these still exist in contemporary US politics, they are far less central in our digital age. Even here in Charlottesville—a city of ten square miles and about 50,000 residents—local civic engagement is strongly shaped by global digital communication platforms. Despite being a politically active community by most measures, the average city resident finds it difficult to know when and how to effectively voice their opinions about city affairs. The building blocks of local advocacy—finding information about when, where, and how to voice your opinions; connecting with others to amplify your voice; and mobilizing community members to action—are all complicated by the reliance on digital technology as a ubiquitous method of communication.
Digital technology shapes how to find information.
Before speaking in person at a town budget meeting, a concerned resident needs to find out where, when, and how to make a public comment. When seeking to weigh in on a topic they care about—such as school funding, sidewalk gaps, or public safety—it can be challenging to identify the proper landing spot for an email or phone call. Decades ago, when city government approached controversial decisions, most people could count on one or more local news outlets—newspapers, TV, radio, and alt-weeklies—to keep interested residents informed. As local news has been hollowed out by the transition from local advertising-supported news sources to global digital advertising platforms, basic information about opportunities for effective civic engagement has become hard to find.
One source of information is local government websites. However, municipalities facing the daunting challenge of creating and maintaining public-facing websites, typically turn to content management systems (CMS) available from a handful of technology vendors. Across the diverse set of information a locality presents to the public, specific items like meeting agendas, budget documents, and key reports are, in our experience, exceedingly difficult to locate.
Another source of information is advocacy groups like Livable Cville, the all-volunteer organization we co-chair. Yet, even our committed volunteers interested in land use, mobility, and climate action find it hard to stay up-to-date on what is happening in local government, often falling back on direct communication with city leaders and staff to ensure we are understanding issues, timelines, and logistics correctly before messaging a larger audience. In other words, it often requires working around technology to gather accurate information.
Digital technology shapes how to organize and advocate
Effective local organizing has always relied on making personal connections. Whereas decades ago, there were more formal civic organizations and informal third places to engage with friends, co-workers, and neighbors, today many people both expect and welcome communication via digital technology—through websites, email-based newsletters, social media, and messaging apps. These platforms enable lower-cost mass communication, yet come with real limitations.
Even a simple email-based newsletter requires a mailing list with subscribe and unsubscribe options. Whether or not an intended recipient sees an email—even one they explicitly opted-into—is at the mercy of email providers spam and prioritization filters. Similar barriers exist on social media channels and text messaging services—with the further collective action challenge of coalescing on a manageable number of platforms among the many options where your target audience may be found.
Even when organizers have information that is welcomed by interested residents, effectively communicating it is heavily influenced by global platforms optimized for virtual engagement, not for effective organizing. As the options for easily sharing information have increased, so too has the difficulty of cutting through a near-constant onslaught of digital information and stimuli to connect with our interested audience.
Digital technologies have made it easier than ever to communicate across barriers of time and space. As such, we would expect that technologic advances in the decades since the Rockwell painting would also reduce barriers to civic engagement. We contend, however, that due to how digital technology is currently integrated into society, it makes it harder to know where, when, and how to make a public comment. In this way, platforms can be viewed as often undermining, rather than supporting, local civic participation. Reclaiming local civic participation will require demanding more from the platforms mediating information discovery and dissemination.
Guidance for VDOT STARS West Main / Ridge / McIntire Survey
The Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) is studying potential improvements around the intersection of West Main St and Ridge St / Mcintire Rd. This intersection is currently hostile to pedestrians, cyclists, and people with mobility devices and it should be improved.
VDOT has proposed 3 potential designs. But while some of the proposed changes are helpful, others are misguided or outright dangerous. Livable Cville is calling on all transportation advocates in the Charlottesville area to take this brief VDOT survey — before the August 28th deadline — and provide feedback to improve the design of this very important intersection.
If you don’t have much time:
Here are quick responses you can provide
Rate Alternatives 1 and 3 as 1/5 and rate Alternative 2 as 3/5.
Provide the following comments for Alternatives 1 and 2:
The bikeways should be protected and extend through the intersection.
Do not add new multi-lane streets or on-street car parking.
Provide the following comment for Alternative 3 (the roundabout)
This design is a non-starter. It is too expensive while also making the intersection more dangerous for pedestrians/cyclists/people with mobility devices than the current unsafe design
If you have more time:
Here is a deep dive into the proposed designs and what we think should be done to make them better.
This includes detailed recommendations to guide your survey responses. Direct and thorough survey responses will be very beneficial for VDOT and the city’s efforts to get the design right.
Analysis of the designs
We believe the highest-priority needs at this intersection are protected bike lanes, shorter pedestrian crossing distances, and closing dangerous slip lanes. We’re very happy to see Alternatives 1 and 2 include closure of the slip lane from Main onto Ridge. And shorter pedestrian crossings and ADA-compliant curb ramps are consistent improvements across all three options. Sadly, no options take a comprehensive view of bike and pedestrian safety, and some elements even make the design worse than what we currently have, such as a two-lane roundabout, unprotected bike lanes that change sides of the street, and making Water St. a two-lane, one-way street. All of these prioritize driving over other modes of transportation and encourage drivers to speed.
We believe only Alternative 2 is worth further consideration, but it needs significant work. The proposed bikeway on West Main St needs a physical barrier to separate cyclists from drivers, such as bollards or delineators. And the current proposal to add new turning lanes and on-street parking on Water St would make the street less safe for drivers, pedestrians, cyclists, and people using mobility devices. This design will encourage drivers to speed, and take away space that would be better used for an extension of a bi-directional bikeway. Instead, Water St. should be a one-lane, one-way for car traffic, with the remaining space for pedestrians and cyclists.
Furthermore, in Alternative 2, the bikeway on West Main St ends abruptly at Ridge St; we believe it should continue through the intersection to connect to the bike lanes on Water and South Sts. We also don’t need more street parking a block away from the two South St surface parking lots and the Water St parking structure (which is rarely full). This space should be used for protected bike lanes. The slip lane at Water St and Ridge St should also be made safer — for example, by adding a stop sign and stop bar before the crosswalk.
It is worth noting that because Alternative 3 includes a multi-lane roundabout and multiple lanes on Water St, keeping the West Main slip lane, and removing existing bike lanes, it should be taken out of consideration completely.
Alternative 1
Alternative 2
Alternative 3
Recommended Responses
We encourage everyone to form their own opinions on the proposed designs, but here are more detailed responses you can include in your survey response:
Alternative 1. Rating: 1/5.
This is a major thoroughfare between UVA, West Main, and downtown and must include protected bike lanes. Without them, many people won't feel safe biking here, and those who do risk being hit or doored by cars. Without protected bike lanes this design is a nonstarter.
This alternative turns Water St into a one-way street and adds turn lanes to reduce congestion. However, there's minimal congestion here to begin with. This design also adds new street parking on Water St just a block from an underutilized parking structure and multiple surface lots. That space would be better used for bike and pedestrian infrastructure.
Alternative 2. Rating: 3/5.
The bikeway on West Main St is an improvement over the status quo, but it must include protection from cars. And, the bikeway must extend through the intersection to connect to the bikeways on Water St. (westbound) and South St. (eastbound).
The proposed new parking spaces on Water St. should be removed and replaced with an extended bikeway. Those parking spaces are right next to an existing surface lot and a large and underutilized parking structure. The crosswalk bumpout could be designed to facilitate safe passage of bikers while minimizing bike + ped conflict points.
The bikeway should be on both north and south sides of the street, not solely on the north side in the proposed design. In order for the bikeway to be useful and safe, it will need to continue to the west all the way to the UVA Corner (and vice versa). Please design with this future use in mind.
Similarly, we should also study an alternative design using parking-protected bike lanes on both sides of West Main St. Parking-protected lanes would be easier to enter and exit, relative to a two-directional bikeway.
Alternative 3. Rating: 1/5.
This design is a complete nonstarter.
This area needs protected bike lanes but this alternative includes no protected bike facilities, and appears to remove some of the existing painted bike lanes. This alone makes it a nonstarter.
This alternative turns Water St into a two-lane, one-way street to reduce congestion. However, there's minimal congestion here to begin with, and this design forces bikers to cross Water St in order to stay in the bike lane, making it hostile and dangerous.
A roundabout isn’t appropriate here. Roundabouts are good at efficiently moving cars through an intersection, but what we need here is to improve bike and pedestrian safety, not to increase car throughput. Two-lane roundabouts are especially hostile to cyclists and pedestrians.
Other comments:
Include an alternative that removes travel lanes from Ridge St north and south of the intersection with Main St. Ridge St has two lanes in each direction at this point, but quickly narrows down to one lane in each direction a few blocks north and south of the intersection. This introduces confusion and dangerous merges, and doesn't allow any space for protected bike lanes.
If you see additional design improvements that you think should be included, please email us at livablecville@gmail.com and we will consider adding them to our recommendations.
reaction to Charlottesville Gas Decarbonization Study Listening Session
I’m going to briefly explain how this process for community engagement is deeply flawed and why you should still participate.
Editors note: this post reflects the reaction of a Livable Cville co-chair after participating in a Charlottesville Gas Decarbonization Study Listening Session. See the city website for information on additional sessions. Please see Community Climate Collaborative (C3) for additional background on Charlottesville Gas, including policy recommendations that C3 and Livable Cville collaborated on in October, 2023.
On July 9, 2024, I attended the first of three planned Listening Sessions. It was held via Zoom. I’m going to briefly explain how this process for community engagement is deeply flawed and why you should still participate.
First, you should still participate because this is the process available to provide input on how important decarbonization is and why the city should aggressively pursue decarbonization via incentives for demand reduction (e.g., energy efficiency for all households), supporting electrification of gas appliances, and making contingency plans for reductions in natural gas plans (by both large commercial customers and consumers). Also, although decommissioning is not currently allowed by state law, that could change in the future, so the city should keep its options open for that future possibility.
Second, I acknowledge that community engagement is really hard to get right! Nonetheless, the current process is deeply flawed because it is not designed to collect input about tradeoffs among realistic options for decarbonization. Instead, it appears designed to attract current Charlottesville gas customers so they can attest to why they don’t want any changes in service. For example, here are the labels of the three breakout rooms where participants had an opportunity for input:
Screen capture from presentation slides.
What do you notice? For starters, none of them are about how to decarbonize. Instead, the focus is on barriers to decarbonization.
Another challenging aspect of the listening sessions is the complete lack of Q&A. Instead of having experts answer questions, the questions were noted for future inclusion in an FAQ. As such, it wasn’t clear why the listening sessions were needed. The same input could have been gathered with a survey.
Finally, here are the current decarbonization plans provided in the opening slides.
Screen capture from presentation slides.
If you attend, here is feedback you can consider providing on these action items:
The new gas connection fee is a good start but does not adequately reflect the fully loaded costs of providing new service. The fee should be revisited again next year.
Weatherization programs are great! They should be available for all Charlottesville residents (e.g., not limited to gas customers).
Existing rebates for new gas appliances should be eliminated. Other rebates should be made available to all Charlottesville residents (e.g., not limited to gas customers).
Carbon offsets are not effective in reducing GHG emissions. Instead, that money should be directed towards gas demand reduction (e.g., #2 and #3 above, as well as electrification incentives).
Tree planting programs are great! But how much energy-savings does the tree program provide? It’s likely a really small drop in a really big bucket!
These steps alone do not align Charlottesville Gas with the city’s climate goals. More, far bolder, action is needed to accomplish that.