Last month, UC Berkeley’s Safe Transportation and Research Center (SafeTREC) launched Street Story, a community engagement platform that allows residents, community groups and agencies to collect information about transportation collisions, near-misses, general hazards and safe locations to travel. In essence, the platform invites users to enter stories about travel experiences.
The tool was created by a team of city planners, public health professionals, engineers, social welfare experts, including College of Environmental Design alumni and Street Story co-developers Kate Beck (M.C.P./M.P.H. ‘17) and Jesus Barajas (Ph.D. City & Regional Planning ‘16).
Stories about travel experiences on the streets are important in providing a fuller picture of safety issues, Street Story researchers argue. The platform is a way for community groups and agencies to collect stories, then use these stories, along with other data sources, to build partnerships and inform policy and street design. Researchers found that over 80 percent of reports on the Street Story platform include a narrative, which provides valuable information that is not normally available in other data sources. Once a report has been made on the platform, the information is publicly accessible, and community groups and agencies can use this information as a part of community needs assessments or transportation safety planning efforts.
Beck hopes that Street Story can be used to address barriers to civic participation for all communities. For example, research shows that many online engagement tools are often used by wealthier, younger and whiter people. The research group at SafeTREC is now working directly with community groups and agencies to incorporate Street Story with other community engagement activities to reach people who may not initially be inclined to use technology.
“I looked at the race and income disparities in using self-reporting to allocate transportation safety resources as my thesis in the MCP program, which was critical in developing the Street Story tool into an element of community engagement efforts in order to reach a wider group of demographics, rather than a link that just gets shared on websites and through social media,” Beck explains.
In addition to being a free tool, a starter guide is included on the platform to help organizations think through how Street Story is used. Because no single way of engagement will work for everyone, researchers have also created a paper version of the platform that can be used by those who don’t feel comfortable or don’t have the resources to participate online.
Test out Street Story here.