Challenge / Goal
López Mateos Avenue cuts through three metropolitan municipalities, connecting on one end the southern entrance to the Mexican state of Jalisco, which leads to one of the most important commercial ports of the country, with the regional capital Guadalajara on the other end. The 34 kilometers of the avenue are a part of the daily commute for around 131.000 people (most of whom use private cars), not to mention multiple cargo vehicles that ply between the port and the city.
Unsurprisingly, López Mateos Avenue, an important commercial route constantly packed with traffic, has also attracted political attention. A suggestion has been made to expand the avenue by building another level above the existing route — a populist action that would not alleviate congestion and is not economically, environmentally, and socially sustainable.
The Secretary of Citizen Participation and Planning of the State was assigned to find a more viable and sustainable solution to the avenue problem than the one that was rumoured about.
Solution
In this project, citizen engagement became the core of the decision-making process. It was crucial to understand the reality of this avenue — how residents, communities and stakeholders experience López Mateos Avenue and what they think about it — before even drafting potential solutions.
To create this wide dialogue with as many people as possible, the state of Jalisco designed a complex engagement plan. The engagement phase lasted for several months and included five modalities.
Firstly, people could submit research, technical proposals, guidelines, or any existing document, contributing to the Non-Participative Observing Research.
After that, the other four modalities were activated to enable people from any given reality to share their ideas and experiences. People essentially answered the same questions — but they had different opportunities to participate. The Secretary team created a map-based survey where residents answered a series of questions about their experiences of the avenue, how they use it, and what improvements they can suggest. In the end, most of the residents participated via Maptionnaire because they could fill in the survey from their own devices at any time without the need to travel for a meeting.
Citizen participation
Citizens were engaged with various methods: via the online community engagement platform Maptionnaire, quick surveys at stoplights, dialogue tables at local assemblies and in-person surveys.
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