This is a happy day for me. The transportation planning game, A Thousand Visions, is OFFICIALLY ONLINE now. Click here to play it and for more info on the Spokane Transportation Vision Project. 
Keep in mind that by playing this game, you're not just playing a game. You're helping us to determine the transportation priorities of the general public for the future. And remember that your name goes into a drawing to win a TomTom GPS unit when you play. I've already had people try to extort the GPS out of me, but I'm standing strong.After you've played the game, let me know what you think.
6 comments:
I really like how, after playing the game, you can see how your choices compare to other people who have played the game. It looks like I chose a lower tax level than other participants, but my performance measures were pretty comparable. That was interesting to see!
When we played this game at a public meeting, that feature got a lot of positive feedback. While testing the game, I played it a couple different times at different taxation levels to see how my performance indicators would change. It's kind of cool to see the different results you get based on how much you can spend.
The game doesn't work for me.
Oh ... that's because I think that when the general populace is having to cut back on their budgets to make ends meet in a bad economy that it is also reasonable for government to adjust its budget accordingly.
The way it works for most people is that they budget based on the amount they expect to receive. Government is one of the few places you can decide what to spend and then adjust your ... income ... accordingly.
I think government is 'adjusting accordingly.' Due to budget shortfalls, The City of Spokane is freezing hiring and wages and laying off folks, the WSDOT is taking furlough days and talking about layoffs (and have done some layoffs in the past couple years) and our cost of living increases were suspended. And we have to cut our cookies in half that we provide at public meetings. That last one was a joke (but really, our accountant asked us to do that once), but I think the local government leaders know what to expect in coming years and are trying to plan for it.
This is a great way to make people aware of how the budget process works. I kept wishing I could use my flexible account for transit, because I despise sales tax. I think it's so regressive. But sadly, I couldn't fund transit without sales tax revenue.
It also made me think that sometimes the earmark system put in place years ago can be outdated and need revision. Of course those getting the lions' share of funding will squawk, but the imbalance could be more adequately addressed if this could be revisited.
It was shocking to me how much less it costs for trails than roads. Tax payers should fund a whole infrastructure of trails to separate peds and bikes from roads. It makes so much health, congestion, and economic sense. The upkeep is so minimal too.
I hope this application has a high participation rate. It is really well done.
I've been hearing from a lot of people how surprised they are at the relatively low cost of bike and ped facilities in comparison to roadway infrastructure. Maybe this will raise support for the bike/ped plans we have in place that include plans for future facilities.
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