Vision, Goals, and Strategies Survey Results

Vision Survey

The public engagement process for ConnectRVA2045 began with the posting on March 12, 2020 of an ArcGIS map inviting public comment on transportation issues, the opportunity to note locations and specifics on the map. The question was also asked “Tell us about your transportation vision for the Richmond region in one or two words.” The answers to this question by the respondents are illustrated by the Word Cloud. “Equity”, “safety”,” Green”, “Bike”, “Connected”, “Multimodal” are all words that factored prominently.

Regional Goals and Priorities Survey

The second public survey was posted using Survey Monkey on June 24, 2020 through August 15, 2020. 501 completed responses to the survey were well distributed throughout the region. Outer reaches of Goochland and Hanover counties were the only areas not responding; the center more populated portion of the region achieved the highest response. Nearly one-half of the respondents lived in the City of Richmond, residents of Chesterfield and Henrico Counties made up one-third with all other jurisdictions representing the balance. The median age of the respondents was 41 years old and average commute was 15.4 miles.

Of the six different priority areas, safety ranked the highest with bike/ped, transit and safer routes to schools being the most frequently mentioned. Environmental quality with protection of natural resources cited as being the most important within this category. Accessibility with a focus on sidewalks and bikeways, access for those with disabilities, better connections between transit options, and improved options for low-income and communities of color all equally weighted. Land use measured by priority on coordination between land use and transportation and creating walkable neighborhoods received the next highest attention. Economic development expressed in terms of connection of workers with jobs, local businesses, and improved quality of life was ranked sixth and congestion mitigation was the lowest priority with more respondents calling for attention to road maintenance and reduced travel time. The selection of priorities was not mutually exclusive and represented a close range of values that only varied by 1.1 point, with 4.4 (out of 5.) being the highest value in safety and congestion mitigation at 3.3 being the lowest.

Vision, Goals and Strategies Survey

This Metro Quest survey supported by VDOT on behalf of the RRTPO was posted from August 15 to October 11, 2020 and received 949 responses. Respondents to this survey were once again more prevalent from the metro area, but also included greater response from Powhatan County than the first survey. The highest by age are in the 31-40 age bracket. Race and ethnicity of the respondents were not as representative of the region’s population composition with 82 percent of the respondents identifying as “White Caucasian”, seven (7) percent as “Black or African American” and only four (4) percent as “Hispanic or Latino”.

As in the first survey, goal selection was not mutually exclusive allowing multiple goals to be ranked by respondents equally. The range from the lowest category of “resiliency” to the highest of “safety” was only 1.26 points. With a high of 3.48 out of 4.0, the most mentioned area of strategic emphasis within the Safety category was “evacuation routes”. Health and Equity at 3.31 called for “public input” and focus on “Environmental”. Connectivity at 3.16 garnered the most interest in making “transit stops convenient”, and strategies for better bike/pedestrian access and walkability factored highly in this category. Accessibility rated at 3.05 (out of 4.0) suggested a focus on “community-based programs.”

The most helpful aspect of the second survey was an open-ended question asking respondents to craft their own Vision Statement for regional transportation. 265 respondents provided their answers which helped guide the Long-Range Transportation Plan Advisory Committee in devising the draft Vision Statement for discussion and input by committee members. The top word choices within their responses confirmed the priorities expressed through the survey questions, and they included:

1. Safe-95

2. Ped/pedestrian-50

3. Bike/bicycle-40

4. Environmental-35

5. Transit-29

6. Network-26

7. Equity/equitable-20

8. Connected/connection-19

9. Affordable-14

10. Multi modal/multimodal-11

11. Sustainable-10

https://planrva.org/wp-content/uploads/VGO-Board-Approved-2-4-2021.pdf

LRTP- Survey Results

.pdf

Download PDF • 1.76MB