Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District

San Rafael Transit Center

Engaging Current and Future Transit Riders 

Background

The San Rafael Transit Center is the regional transit hub for Marin County. It connects bus service, airporter service, taxi, and rail service with transfer points to San Francisco, Contra Costa and Sonoma counties. An extension of the Sonoma Marin Area Rail Transit (SMART) station further south to Larkspur bisected the existing transit center site. The Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District (Bridge District), with several government agency partners, is leading a project to replace the transit center in a new location in downtown San Rafael.   

Approach

Through project lead Kimley Horn, a national planning and design engineering consulting firm, Civic Edge led community engagement. Several rounds of community engagement were completed on the project in 2018 to gain community input on the universe of alternatives and assist with the screening of alternatives. Then, another round of outreach was conducted in 2020 and 2021 to provide the community an update on the project and disseminate information about the project alternatives prior to the release of the Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR). After carefully adopting the FEIR with the preferred project, examining various and conducting the necessary environmental analysis, the project team sought input from the community regarding the architectural design and amenities of the new Transit Center.

Building Community Partnerships

Engagement included opportunities to build up partnerships between the Bridge District and local community leaders like Canal Alliance, a non-profit that offers legal services, education and career programs, and social services to help Latino immigrants and their families overcome barriers to success. A text message campaign and three events held in Spanish on Facebook Live were organized in partnership with Canal Alliance. Further bilingual outreach included Spanish-English project fact sheets and posters placed at the San Rafael Transit Center, Spanish translation of the DEIR Executive Summary and related documents and using their trained staff (“promotoras”) for in-person outreach. 

By the Numbers

  1. 100+ email notifications to community, neighborhood, and business organizations
  1. 90+ hours of in-person outreach at the Transit Center with bilingual postcards
  1. 4 online community events in English and Spanish
  1. 2 in-person community events in English and Spanish

Project Expertise

  1. Multilingual community engagement
  1. Digital engagement tools
  1. Equity and stakeholder engagement strategy
  1. Social media strategy