Communications Failure By City Communications Department

They Really Screwed the Pooch on Communicating the Transportation Master Plan

The first thing you learn in communications class is that for a message to be effective it must be received. You can have all the fancy displays, the graphs, the statistics but unless the message is received and understood by your audience, you might as well just flush it down the toilet.

Communication must be tailored to your audience. Information for the general public is different than information for industry experts. To write for the general public, you should avoid excessive use of industry jargon. There are lots of intelligent people out there without a college degree. When things are explained in simpler terms, they are quite capable of making good decisions.

The City had an opportunity to gain buy-in from the public on the Transportation Master Plan but failed miserably, leaving the city’s Planning and Development department to bear the brunt.

This creates a stressful work environment - people may go on stress leave, they may even quit and go work somewhere else. It is much harder to recruit when the work environment is seen as toxic and/or incompetent.

As we have heard so many times from City Administration, they have a duty to protect their staff from an unsafe work environment. This includes not setting up fellow employees to fail. This Transportation Master Plan was doomed to failure because of the inept communication coming out of the Glass Palace.

The Transportation Master Plan  is a high level visionary document with no specific detailed plans for any one project. This 80+ page document is a mere outline as to how they might proceed in the future. The public got bogged down into specific projects, not realizing that the Master Plan is merely a vision.

Page 25 says

The vision of the Transportation Master Plan 2050 is to develop a transportation system that is more economically and environmentally sustainable, supports a spectrum of land uses and intensities, and provides more efficient, healthier, and safer ways for Hatters to get around using different modes of transportation. This system, and its associated networks, policies, and programs will be planned, designed, and operated to be more adaptative to change as climate, transportation technology and demographics evolve.

The previous plan last updated in 2013 advocated for

- closing Hwy 1 at 6th St SW (by the Park Lane)

- closing Hwy 1 at 16th St SW (by the old Husky)

- constructing a 4 lane road to the Burnside development

- making South Boundary Road 4 lanes between Southridge Drive (RR 60) and RR 61.

All those things never happened.

It is no secret that many people are resistant to change; many people use social media to disseminate information. We know that people are resistant to increased costs which often means increasing taxes.

People got so upset over the proposed plans for 3rd St N (and the work already done on Division Avenue) that they transferred that anger to the Transportation Master Plan, so much so that Council felt the need to hold a Public Hearing for it on July 7 2025. Council said they did this to make sure that everyone felt they were heard but really it was because the City’s Communication department shit the bed. The message was hopelessly muddled; people were angry.

Here’s How They Could Have Avoided This Whole Toxic Mess

The City’s Planning and Development (P&D) Department knows well ahead of time what roads need to be ripped up to replace aging infrastructure. This gives City Communications lots of time to achieve buy-in from the public.

The P&D Department knows the most up to date advances/ trends, they’re the experts, they have the training and the experience. They put forth the ideas, it is the job of City Communications to communicate these ideas to the city in such a way to make them palatable. This often means dealing with one issue at a time.

The very first thing they should have done is tell the public

“We need to repave the road (and/or replace underground infrastructure to keep services flowing). While we understand this is inconvenient, this is also an opportunity to make it better since the road will be ripped up anyway. Here’s some ideas.”

Safety issues would be the logical first choice. The safety issues need to be identified, then solutions to those issues can be proposed. If they focused on the safety of children and seniors, they would have so much more buy-in from the general public.

Who can argue with the concept of making the streets for little Susie or Grandma in her power scooter?

If the safety issue is speeding, you can propose a variety of traffic calming measures along with their effectiveness and the financial cost.

The City of Seattle Washington put out a document called Seattle Safe Routes to School Engineering Toolkit. The title itself is brilliant; it evokes emotion about keeping children safe on their way to school. This creates increased buy-in from reluctant residents.It clearly defines the the tools to address safety issues, the benefits and drawbacks of each tool, the costs, and the timelines. They realize that not all tools will work in all neighbourhoods. Some of the tools are very simple such as a stop sign or a speed zone reduction

Here’s A Better Solution

You do not give them a choice as to whether safety measures will be installed or not, you give them a choice as to what safety features are to be  installed.

Planning and Development could have done better. They produced a conceptual plan for 3rd St N which included a lot of changes before they asked for input from the residents. It would have been better to ask for input before creating the conceptual plan. When people have some ownership in the process they are much more likely to be receptive to change.

Important Facts That Should Have Been Included With the Plans for Division Avenue and 3rd ST N 

From the  Seattle Safe Routes to School Engineering Toolkit.

Children commute to school every day.

Active Transportation is not just about adults using bicycles to commute to work, it is also about children from K-12 commuting to school. Not all children want to take the school bus - sometimes they want to walk or skateboard or ride a scooter or their bicycle.

Children, seniors in mobility devices and people in wheelchairs are not as visible to drivers. Focusing on the safety of our most vulnerable is a great way to gain acceptance of safety measures. St Joseph’s Home is near a busy intersection. Many of those residents don’t move quickly; some are in the hospice.

The cost to maintain the wide roads we have now.

 It costs about $1,000,000/ mile to repave an existing 2 lane road. That doesn’t include the costs for pothole repairs, resealing, sanding, street sweeping, snow clearing etc. Page 6-5 of the 2013 Plan estimated that the cost to widen South Boundary Road between RRs 60 and 61 to 4 lanes would be $10,750,000. It is safe to say that 12 years later, that cost will be much higher.

More vehicles on the road decreases longevity of the roads which increases costs. Encouraging people to take active transportation decreases vehicles on the roads which means they will last longer as well as decrease commute time. By encouraging children to ride bicycles, take scooters or public transit, it means their parents are not having to drive them everywhere thereby decreasing traffic. This means others can get to their destination quicker.

Statistics about traffic volumes, road width and the thresholds necessary to initiate changes. An old marketing adage says “Perception is Reality”. People are angry because they believe that the roads are being narrowed. Medicine Hat residents have had the luxury of very wide roads. They have become used to being able to drive their larger vehicles hauling their trailers down every road.

Did you know? “In Alberta, as long as the RV does not have air brakes, a regular Class 5 licence is all you need to drive most RVs.” That is very different from the rest of the country which varies in license requirements. For example, BC requires a House Trailer Endorsement for anything over 4600kg. Because there are no skill requirements in Alberta for towing multiple trailers (eg. truck + fifth wheel + toy hauler), this means there are class 5 drivers navigating our roads with heavy and awkward loads.

More vehicles on the road decreases longevity of the roads which increases costs. Encouraging people to take active transportation decreases vehicles on the roads which means they will last longer as well as decrease commute time. By encouraging children to ride bicycles, take scooters or public transit, it means their parents are not having to drive them everywhere thereby decreasing traffic. This means others can get to their destination quicker.

Statistics about traffic volumes, road width and the thresholds necessary to initiate changes. An old marketing adage says “Perception is Reality”. People are angry because they believe that the roads are being narrowed. Medicine Hat residents have had the luxury of very wide roads. They have become used to being able to drive their larger vehicles hauling their trailers down every road.

There has been quite a bit of criticism about the amount of concrete used for sidewalks. Sidewalks last far longer than roads do - they’re not bearing the brunt of heavy vehicles damaging the roads day after day after day.

Some of Medicine Hat’s sidewalks are over 40 years old. This one on Maple Avenue bears the date of 1982.

The Transportation MasterPlan was accepted for information at the July 21 City Council Meeting.