Grand Rapids River for All Civic Engagement

Community: City of Grand Rapids
Population: 10,000+

River For All was a four-day experiential and tactical civic engagement process strategically positioned during Artprize 2017 in downtown Grand Rapids. River For All was located prominently on the Bridge Street Bridge, where a lane of traffic was closed and converted to park space and public input activities. The event included the piloting of the City’s first decorative crosswalk and using infrastructure as a canvas for public art and wayfinding. The event garnered roughly 2,150 conversations, 2,069 dot votes, and 117 surveys regarding the design preferences for the future of the Grand River corridor trail and adjacent parks. Because of the pilot project, the City is now designing and constructing a decorative crosswalk at this same location. And, the city activated a former parking lot as an outdoor movie venue at one of the future park sites along the river.


Replicability:

The first premise, to “tap into” preexisting events is easy to replicate. Find a community event and build a relationship with the event sponsors to leverage your community engagement needs. It’s also possible to replicate the closing of a traffic lane by working with your municipal engineer and discussing the opportunity to use “extra” space for a temporary purpose, like a parklet or bulb out. You can use local artists to paint murals and find mural locations that can also incorporate wayfinding. Finally, we partnered with the Grand Rapids Pubic Schools to use high school students to help design community input activities, and administer surveys. This can be easily replicated in any community by building partnerships with local schools, and scheduling your engagement during the school year.

Creativity and Originality:

The project blended experiential learning and tactical urbanism into a bold event utilizing the foot-traffic generated during a nationally recognized art festival. We were purposeful about deconstructing a typical public meeting, and taking it outdoors to the project location, during a community event. The scale and combination of engagement types had not previously been utilized in the City of Grand Rapids. The location of the study area allowed for the creative use of an auto-dominated bridge through the occupation of a lane of traffic for a pop-up park and civic engagement stations. The project also tested new concepts in the City, including decorative crosswalks, and using public infrastructure for painting wayfinding murals. We partnered with Grand Rapids Public Schools, and high school students designed and implemented civic engagement activities, including surveys and mural painting. The input was used to inform the park design plans, and the guidelines for the river trail.

Community Impact:

The project gathered feedback at a location with views of the Grand River. We were above it! The public has a better understanding of the importance of the trail and adjacent parks design in the overall restoration of the rapids within the Grand River. This type of approach not only encourages feedback from those who may not attend a traditional public meeting, it encourages creative feedback through observing the study area first hand, and being immersed in design alternatives. The impact has been immense as we now have thousands of community champions, including school-age children with a heightened awareness about the history of the Grand River and the future plans to restore the rapids. Additionally, sites along the Grand River which were identified by participants as opportunity sites, have been acquired by the City and activated, including the rebranding and relocation of “Movies in the Park” in Ah-Nab-Awen Park to “Movies on Monroe,” a parking lot which will ultimately be converted to a park.

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