Cultural Planning for Urban Transit Corridors: Providence, Rhode Island

City of Providence Dept. of Art, Culture + Tourism

Stephanie Fortunato

Providence, RI

Project Dates:

May - December 2012

Tags

2013 CCX presenter, Civic Engagement, Policy

Posted Date:

Dec 11, 2012

Cultural Planning for Urban Transit Corridors is a case study of the Providence Transportation Corridors to Livable Communities initiative, an innovative partnership between municipal and state arts, planning and economic development, and transportation agencies. The City of Providence Departments of Planning and Development; Art Culture + Tourism; and the Rhode Island Public Transportation Authority partnered to integrate arts, culture, and heritage into transportation planning, neighborhood development, and zoning. As more communities are planning for new or re-invigorated transit corridors and hubs, the Providence experience shows how full-fledged partnerships between cultural, city, transit and economic development planners can advance multiple community concerns at the same time.

Project Goals

What were the project goals?

• Provide frequent, reliable transit service. • Improve access to employment centers, arts and cultural opportunities, and healthy food choices. • Encourage development that is concentrated around transit stops and offers a range of housing choices serving a variety of household types and income levels. • Encourage the creation of community hubs, unique to the character of the neighborhoods where they are located. • Phase II will take place during 2013; the City will update and revise the Providence Zoning Ordinance.

Have they changed over time?

Who are the project partners and stakeholders?

The lead partners for the project are the City of Providence Departments of Planning + Development and Art, Culture + Tourism and the Rhode Island Public Transportation Authority. The cultural planning team included Stephanie Fortunato, Craig Dreeszen, Tom Borrup, and graduate students from the Public Humanities program at Brown University. The 17 members of the Project Advisory Committee, responsible for guiding the overall project, represented a wide range of citywide interests - from housing to design, sustainability to community arts organizations. Stakeholder groups for each of the 5 project corridors provided guidance about corridor-specific concerns. Stakeholders were selected to represent the character of the corridor and the groups were a mix of residents, local merchants, civic leaders, social service organizations, arts and cultural organizations, artists, neighborhood associations, transit riders, and other interested parties. In addition, several public meetings were held to encourage other people connected to the corridors to participate. Craig Dreeszen's cultural policy students from Brown University used the project as a case study and presented recommendations to city officials as their final project.

Project Specifics

How was the project implemented? What were the steps taken?

Through the HUD-funded project, the City of Providence engaged Dreeszen & Associates to map cultural resources along five urban bus routes. For the purposes of this study, researchers used the protocol established by NEFA’s New England’s Creative Economy: The Nonprofit Sector in defining the creative sector. Secondary data from directories, databases, and event calendars to identify and map cultural resources including the RIEDC Business Database, New England Foundation for the Arts’ Culture Count and Matchbook, Rhode Island State Council on the Arts, and Art Culture + Tourism have been combed in order to identify and map cultural resources along the five project corridors. The team conducted field research to corroborate data collection efforts. The team then gathered stakeholder input to identify the distinct character for each corridor, expressed as a cultural theme. Transportation planners and designers are using the themes to invite artist proposals for bus shelter amenities, public art, way-finding systems, bus stop identification, and pedestrian enhancements along each corridor. In the third phase of the project, the City agencies and consulting team developed creative placemaking strategies to stimulate cultural awareness and participation, encourage creative economic development, and adapt zoning regulations to accommodate proposed creative-sector land uses.

Have they been refined over time?

While the primary tasks remained the same throughout the life of the project, the planning team adapted the work plan to reflect new knowledge and understanding of the tasks throughout the project.

Obstacles

What were your major obstacles?

The scope of the cultural planning component was ambitious; timing was the greatest challenge for the planning team. The City engaged Dreeszen & Associates 6 months into a yearlong funding period. The pace required the cultural planning team to strictly adhere to the project timeline. We will share how the City of Providence integrated transportation, economic development, zoning, and cultural planning; mapped cultural resources; applied creative placemaking strategies; and planned to integrate arts, culture, and heritage into five high-volume transit corridors in mostly working-class and immigrant neighborhoods of Providence, Rhode Island in a relatively short period of time.

Who or what was instrumental in overcoming these obstacles?

Craig Dreeszen is not only a thoughtful cultural planner but a gifted facilitator. He tactfully, and strategically, helped keep the project on schedule.

What top three suggestions would you give to others attempting a similar project?

1. Planners should identify, contact, and collect data from as many existing data sources as possible before beginning the cultural asset inventory. Integrating data from multiple databases can be very time consuming as it can require extensive reformatting and it is important to build this time into the workplan accordingly. It may be more flexible, efficient, and effective to use technology that employs crowdsourcing to gather information about cultural assets, such as the Places Matter database, http://www.placematters.net/. Our observations about the corridors led us to take an expansive approach to defining cultural assets; in retrospect, asking community members to define cultural resources would be an even better way to assess the cultural life of a corridor. 2. Employ multiple assessment instruments -- especially when the project timeline is constrained. In developing the corridor-specific themes, the cultural planning team interviewed experts, worked with the Project Advisory Committee and corridor stakeholder groups, collected input at public meetings, convened focus groups, and solicited responses through an online survey. All assessment tools are flawed but by providing multiple entry points partners have the best chance of capturing the community's voice in a relatively short period of time. 3. The strength of this partnership from the beginning was the partnership between the City's Planning Department, Arts, Culture + Tourism and the state transit agency. The project built upon existing planning documents previously published by each of these lead partners. The project team worked together closely to communicate and align strategies and tasks. We anticipate that the initiatives and decisions about resource allocation that result from this project will similarly be a collaborative effort.

Project Impact

How has this project contributed to creative community building?

Since the project integrated transit, economic development, cultural planning, and land use, many of the stakeholders who participated were unfamiliar with the depth and breadth of the City's cultural assets. By integrating cultural planning into the project from the beginning the work served as an advocacy tool for a wide range of "uninitiated" stakeholders. We just officially completed the cultural planning phase of this project. However, by June we will be able to provide a more complete update about the impact on creative community building. This phase of the project is expected to be complete by March 2013.

How did it achieve your original goals?

Cultural asset mapping made existing arts and cultural opportunities visible. At the same time, it pointed to areas where cultural offerings were scarce - and/or our knowledge was limited. This information was critical in developing creative placemaking strategies for the community hubs that reflect and reinforce the character of the neighborhoods where they are located. The City and RIPTA are using corridor themes to guide the development of transit enhancements along the corridors including bus shelters, wayfinding, standalone public art, and kiosks. In spring 2013, the City and RIPTA will jointly issue calls for art. A Cultural and Creative Economy subcommittee will be appointed to advise the City during Phase II of the project, revising Providence's Zoning Ordinance.

Were there unexpected impacts?

The cultural planning team forged connections between stakeholders working independently, but on related projects, along the corridors. Several organizations were in the early stages of creating branding and marketing campaigns. They are now able to align their implementation plans with the findings completed as part of this work. Community cohesion is a major challenge for one of the five project corridors. This project was a catalyst for community members to come together to talk about their neighborhood. The planning team is hopeful that this will continue going forward.

Creative Economy

Upcoming Event

Cultural Planning for Urban Transit Corridors: Providence, Rhode Island