What’s the Plan?

In my little corner of the world, where I live in suburban Mississauga, a series of municipal decisions have rocked my neighbours worlds.

First a local bridge over a major highway was removed which people saw as a major loss, leaving the neighbourhood with reduced access to local shops and services.

Next, a local undeveloped grassland was to be developed into a city park and trail system, which alarmed the neighborhood as they had gotten used to a quiet, virtually unknown, private sanctuary.

Then it emerged that the traffic light to exit our neighbourhood will be replaced with a roundabout. Nobody liked that idea.

Finally, we received notice last week, that our street was due to be resurfaced as part of the cities annual maintenance process.

It’s been fascinating to watch people react.

Broadly speaking, these are positive changes. A new park, slowed traffic, renewed roadway. But people have reacted in horror to every single change.

The only conclusion to draw is that people do not like change, and people especially do not like to be surprised by changes.

What is most interesting to me, is that the bridge had been planned for removal since the 1980’s. The park was part of a City Parks master plan that had been approved decades ago. The roundabout plan had been in place for a decade or more and gone through all of the necessary legislative processes associated with an EA. The road resurfacing has presumably been on a capital plan for years.

So every one of these changes had been planned, and budgeted for years, if not decades before the project become known locally.

But in each case. No. One. Knew.

My neighbours have in surprisingly large numbers reacted with incredulity, anger, and a “we must get this changed” approach to things that were decided many years before.

The frustration, the negativity, the impact on our neighbours perception of the city, not to mention Councillor and staff time dealing with complaints that were always going nowhere, has been unbelievable.

It feels to me there is an opportunity for municipalities to do better. We know in broad strokes what’s planned over the next 10 years and beyond, what’s contained in Parks, Roads, Water and Wastewater, Culture and other Master Plans and strategies.

While I know there are many examples of municipalities sharing annual capital projects on a map, or displaying

Why don’t we bring it all together in one place?

Here’s what I want to see:

So, here’s the question.

Is this a stupid idea? Is there anywhere that does a good job of this already? Is anyone part of the way there? Are there good platforms or tools for doing this?

I’d love to hear what people think!