Go Human Kicks off $1.25 million Grant with Community Listening Session

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The Go Human team is pleased to announce that the California Office of Traffic Safety (OTS) has awarded SCAG $1.25 million in grant funding to continue the Go Human program. This grant will fund continued Go Human activities through September 2021, enabling the program to serve a greater role in recovery and resiliency efforts in response to the pandemic, especially for the people most impacted.

With this funding, our partners across the region can look forward to:

• The Community Safety Ambassador Cohort Program, a participatory and experiential planning and leadership series, inclusive of paid participation for community and neighborhood level leaders to engage in 6 – 9 leadership sessions culminating in local safety activations;
• Resilient Streets and Safety Mini-Grants, which fund local projects led by community-based organizations that address safety and resiliency in response to the pandemic and neighborhood level needs;
• The Sub-Regional Safety Peer Exchange, a series of community-informed virtual sessions for stakeholders and practitioners addressing traffic safety; and
• Co-Branded Safety Materials, print and digital graphics provided at no cost to jurisdictions who have committed to the Go Human Safety Pledge, to expand safety messaging in multiple languages and formats across the region.

To kick off the grant, Go Human held a Community Listening Session in October 2020 to understand how to best shape upcoming strategies. During this session, members of the public discussed their safety priorities and offered feedback on Go Human’s anticipated safety and engagement strategies. Key insights from the session are below.

• Prioritize concerns around policing of people who walk and bike and explore opportunities and strategies for unarmed traffic enforcement.
• Emphasize relationship building with people in the community and increase the amount of funding for community engagement.
• Explore opportunities to increase access for pedestrians at locations that provide food distribution and testing.
• Pursue systems change through an assessment of the history and impact of white supremacy and racial capitalism on communities.
• To form cohorts of safety ambassadors, organize existing connections within communities, such as mutual aid networks and informal networks of friends, family, and neighbors.
• Ensure that safety education material is relevant by creating ways for safety ambassadors to have a hand in content and curriculum development.
• Partner with schools to address traffic congestion during pick-up and drop-off times.
• Integrate safety infrastructure with other improvements in the region, such as water infrastructure improvements and 5G infrastructure.

For those unable to attend the Listening Session, consider shaping Go Human’s safety strategies by filling out the Community Listening Session Feedback Survey by December 18, 2020. We’d love to hear your thoughts.

SCAG’s Go Human campaign is supported by funding from the California Office of Traffic Safety, through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.