Engagement and consultation

There are three main purposes for engaging the public and stakeholders on cycle infrastructure projects:

• enable the project to be delivered, by maintaining sufficient social licence to operate (social licence means sufficient public and political support to see a project through to completion, given its perceived costs)
• maximise return on investment by refining project scope and designs (see Consult Australia's Valuing better engagement(external link))
• maximise return on investment by encouraging greater uptake of the infrastructure.

Maintaining social licence for cycling-related projects requires strong and widespread support from non-cyclists, who see value in the wider benefits of the project beyond those that directly benefit people who bike. This is because identifiable ‘cyclists’ are currently too small a minority of any population to be a project’s main source of public support. General community support for investing in cycling must be gained early in the cycle network development process, before routes are being engaged on, and actively maintained.

Every cycling infrastructure project must be resilient to ‘bikelash’. Bikelash can be defined as disproportionately intense resistance to a project, which goes beyond the ‘not-in-my-backyard’ (NIMBY) concern commonly experienced by infrastructure projects. Bikelash is an international phenomenon and is most often related to:

• a sense of loss from changes to road space allocation, especially loss of parking (residential and commercial), plus
• negative stereotyping of ‘cyclists’, perceived as an identifiable, aggravating minority.

Combined, these can fuel a belief that the impacts of project are a cost on many for the benefit of a few.

If the bikelash risk is not properly identified and/or mitigation is insufficiently resourced, loss of community support can jeopardise project delivery and also create a hostile environment for future cycling initiatives.

A project that can clearly communicate its broadly-appealing benefits, whose engagement refers back to an already established mandate for investing in cycling and has built and maintained local social capital in advance, may draw down on this later in the project to help maintain sufficient support for the project to go ahead.

Effective engagement builds and maintains social licence by following good practice (see the draft NZ Transport Agency public engagement guidelines [PDF, 1020 KB]) but with some unique characteristics. These are about addressing the root causes of bikelash before it occurs, and unlocking the wider public support that is essential for successful delivery and uptake. They include:

• sound and broadly appealing rationales, tactically communicated with good ‘why we are doing this’ stories and effective imagery – these rationales and their communication must be specific to the project, not relying on historical strategic plans for mandate
• ‘why’ stories reinforced by associated activities, that elicit support from a wide range of groups and people, for example: promotions and complementary initiatives encouraging people to choose to bike locally – ‘Take public transport and bike to the Festival – discount tickets, special bike parking’ 
• significant early stage communications and early stage ‘asking’ activities that establish widespread appreciation of the rationales, and widespread support for the project’s concept, for example: getting public input with broad-spectrum questions around mobility, liveability, accessibility and vibrancy of the urban area, which open the space for ideas about investing in sustainable transport (including cycling) as a means to those ends
• gathering information on how local businesses and residents use their existing local road network
• doing public engagement ahead of phases at most risk of bikelash, such as scheme and detailed design and construction, and continuing it through those phases
• following delivery, continued engagement and wider promotion of the infrastructure to encourage people to start using the new facility.

Cycling projects tend to need engagement with a wider range of groups than equivalently disruptive or costly infrastructure projects. This builds the wider base of support that helps maintain community support and maximise uptake.

The project’s engagement and communications plan should have strategies for dealing with the following kinds of people throughout the project, to build and maintain social licence:

• local community (including affected individuals, but deliberately including a wide range of other people unrelated to cycling, including schools, iwi, businesses)
• advocacy groups (including cycling, but also transport and recreation groups who can help build social licence)
• elected representatives (councillors, local board members, local MPs)
• middle and upper management within council (who can drive support from other functional areas of council)
• thought leaders and influential figures in the community (especially those without a pro-cycling reputation) who can be champions.

Key decision-makers (such as councillors) must at all times be well-informed and supportive of the project’s engagement strategy and plan, and be well prepared to handle developments (such as a rise in bikelash, or an ad hoc opportunity to promote the project’s rationale). 

A useful rule of thumb is:

Take the resources (staff time and costs) typically allocated to consultation for a non-cycling infrastructure project of equivalent capital cost and disruption to the cycleway project. The allocation required for a cycling infrastructure project is likely to be at least twice that amount.

Cycleway project engagement work must be front-loaded in the project timeline. Specialist engagement support is recommended at the early stage for creating the engagement plan and integrating it with the project plan.

Other essential early stage work will include establishing and developing relationships:

• with other organisations that will be partners in growing the project’s social licence (eg cycle skills trainers who can work with nearby schools, local polytechnic or high school for students’ graphic design)
• with key non-cycling influencers and groups in the community (eg local school principals, boards of trustees, large local employers, local politicians)
• with other parts of council that will be partners in delivering complementary or associated works to the cycling infrastructure (eg teams responsible for urban design, infrastructure works, parking, community events, business groups). 

Every cycling infrastructure project should have a formal engagement and communications plan, which is comprehensively integrated with the project plan and supported by the whole project team.

The engagement and communications plan will have:

• clear, agreed statements of why engagement is being done – its purposes and how the plan’s activities will achieve them
• the broadly appealing key messages and rationales (‘why are we doing this’ story) for the project that maximises broad public support
• communications messages, images and language which illustrate these key messages, and are adhered to by everyone who speaks with the public, for example, using ‘people who cycle’ not ‘cyclists’
• different activities for different phases of the project (see What to engage on) which all manifest good-practice engagement (see the draft NZ Transport Agency public engagement guidelines [PDF, 1020 KB])
• strategies to manage each stakeholder whose approval is essential (councillors, local board members, key landowners), covering the whole project timeline
• a media management strategy, including relationship development with local press, and proactive good-news stories to build support and counter balance inevitable negative media.

The following table lists suggestions specific to cycling infrastructure projects, and complements the information given in the draft NZ Transport agency public engagement guidelines [PDF, 1020 KB].

Table 16: Engaging on cycling infrastructure projects

Source: Kindly made available by Kym Dorrestyn, Dorrestyn & Co Pty Ltd.