Southeastern Community Driven Mobility Roadmap & Participatory Budgeting Project

With funding from Supervisor Nathan Fletcher’s office and the California Air Resources Board, and in collaboration with GRID Alternatives and Greenlining Institute, Pueblo Planning partnered with four Southeastern community-based organizations and Southeastern community members to co-develop a Community Driven Mobility Roadmap. Taking the historical context of the community into consideration, as planning processes detailing community members’ mobility priorities and visions in Southeastern San Diego had been implemented before, the Southeastern Community Mobility Roadmap built upon previous planning efforts. As part of this process, Pueblo Planning engaged multigenerational community members to share their current transportation priorities; facilitated a visioning process in which community members determined what the future of transportation should be and how to achieve that vision; conducted advocacy and built connections with key decision-makers as part of the project; and implemented a transportation pilot project chosen by the community through a participatory budgeting process.

With the outreach support and guidance from the CBO partners, Pueblo Planning facilitated a total of ten participatory workshops and pop-up events. The first five participatory planning workshops and pop-up events provided community members an opportunity to share their mobility experiences and their vision for mobility that meets their needs. In the second five participatory workshops and pop-up events, Pueblo Planning shared what was heard and began to co-develop strategies with community members to achieve their vision. As a result, the Community Driven Mobility Roadmap documented community members’ mobility priorities and visions which allowed for further advocacy efforts resulting in $1.5 million being allocated for lighting and street safety infrastructure in Southeastern as well as relationship building between community-based organizations and city staff. Additionally, the listening sessions and pop-ups helped to inform what community priorities were to be included as part of the Participatory Budgeting Process. This was the first time a Participatory Budgeting Process had been implemented in San Diego’s history; and with this process, the multi-generational community members voted on $100,000.00 to be used for a Community Beautification pilot project in Southeastern San Diego.