LITTLE ROCK — ActiveStyle is just too active to stop and mess with surveys or quizzes or sales types seeking opinions of this or that, but the other day a source, Ed Levy, passed along a link to something worth messing with.
Because it’s fun.
At the time, Levy was still chairman of Little Rock’s Bicycle Friendly Community Committee, and Metroplan had asked him to spread the word about an online survey it created as part of its Imagine Central Arkansas project.
Imagine Central Arkansas is a long-range planning project;
Metroplan has been trying to round up residents’ comments for it since September. The people who show up in person to talk at public-comments meetings have been showing up at a series of workshops. Did you attend one of those meetings?
If not, Metroplan has another way to cajole you to weigh in. It’s this online survey, “Choose Your Future.” It’s colorful, interactive and available at future.imaginecentralarkansas.org.
What you do is go to that website and follow its instructions.
First you’ll see some gray boxes numbered “01-05.” Stop yourself from wondering why 01 and not simply 1. Look below them to the line of eight icons in sophisticated decorator colors. You’ll see only five of these icons, but touch blue arrows to either side, and the rest scroll in.
Each icon represents a philosophical priority:
A car icon represents “Faster commute: Getting to work or school in less time.” Below it is information: “The average central Arkansas resident spent about 24 hours sitting in congestion in 2010, up from 17 hours in 2000. The average work trip took about 23 minutes. Faster commutes could mean less congestion or a shorter distance between home and work/school.”
The dollar sign stands for “Less government spending (no new taxes): No increases in public expenditures over what is budgeted today.
Government agencies must provide services without any new sources of revenue, such as new taxes. Limited transportation funding would likely result in a shifting of resources to maintain the current transportation network before investing in expanded options.”
A lime green bus stands for “More transportation choices: The availability of multiple forms of transportation, whether it be walking, cycling, transit or driving, to go about our daily routine. For a number of reasons, including livability, cost, health and the environment, a growing number of Americans are interested in having more than one transportation choice available to them.”
A teal tree … “Parks and natural areas: Preserving and enhancing central Arkansas’ numerous parks and natural areas. This includes neighborhood pocket parks as well as large natural areas such as Pinnacle Mountain and streams.”
A (disturbingly) orange sky with a white cloud … “Protect the environment (air quality, energy conservation): Ensuring that the environmental resources we enjoy today, such as clean air and water, and readily available energy sources are available to future generations.”
A teal house … “Household transportation cost: Household transportation costs include any and all personal expenditures required for daily mobility. This could be the cost to own, maintain and fuel an automobile; parking costs; transit fares.”
A lime green tote bag … “Convenience (shopping, services, work, etc., nearby): Having basic daily needs including work, shopping and services within easy reach. This means a short drive, walk, bike or bus ride.”
An orange dictionary - no, maybe that’s a rule book … “Less regulations: Ensuring that additional restrictions or regulations won’t be put in place as the region grows in the future. This includes government regulations that help determine, in part, the type and location of new development and other stipulations.”
The game is you select the five icons that best represent your priorities and plug one into each of those gray blocks. Then the site walks you through a series of public challenges. For instance, “Central Arkansans have told us that parks and natural spaces are important. What steps would you take to promote parks and preserve natural areas?”
You are presented four possible steps and asked to select three and drag them up into another set of gray boxes. But on this page, each time you select an option, a graph off to the side tells you how that choice would mess with your already selected priorities.
Successive pages ask you to consider rush-hour congestion, walking and biking, air quality, strategies to bolster the local economy, and the cost of gas.
Make it through the survey and the site asks you to reveal:
Where you live (Pulaski, Lonoke, Perry or Saline counties or someplace else in Arkansas);
Your general age (younger than 18, 18-29, 30-39, 40-59 or 60 and older);
Your primary, everyday mode of transportation;
The length of your average daily commute to work or school;
What kind of area you reside in: downtown, neighborhood near downtown, suburb, small town,rural/county or other.
Submit that, and the site rewards you with a summary of how your choices would uphold or betray your five priorities, a chance to sign up for a newsletter and access to charts comparing your responses to other people’s.
The website will collect responses through February. After that, the news release said, “results from the online tool will be tallied to create various long-range scenarios that will be presented and voted on for central Arkansas in early spring.
… Imagine Central Arkansas will culminate in a new metropolitan transportation and development plan by late 2013.”
More about Imagine Central Arkansas is at ImagineCentralArkansas.org, and facebook.com/Metroplan.
There’s also a Twitter account, but according to my philosophical priorities, messing with Twitter takes too long.
BIKE COORDINATOR
The Bicycle Friendly Community Committee is assigned by Mayor Mark Stodola to try to get Little Rock something North Little Rock and Bentonville have already obtained, a Bicycle Friendly designation from the League of American Bicyclists.
Ed Levy is no longer at the helm of the committee because the city’s new part-time, bicycle coordinator took over Wednesday. He is Jeremy Lewno, owner of Bobby’s Bike Hike in the Little Rock River Market.
Lewno is working to update the committee’s website, bikelr.com. He can be reached at [email protected].
Meetings, which are public, are usually on the first Wednesday of the month at the Little Rock River Market.
ActiveStyle, Pages 28 on 02/18/2013