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Neighborhood Challenges

In April 2023, LB Co-Lab community working group participants from four participating neighborhoods identified a primary challenge that they seek to solve with technology. The completion of the LB Co-Lab program in October 2023 resulted in technology pilot solutions at Houghton Park and in the neighborhoods of Ramona Park, Westside, and Willmore. Each neighborhood recieved an initial budget of $35,000 to implement a technology pilot. Learn more about the selected technology solutions. 

Challenge Directory:

                                                                             
Pedestrian Safety at Houghton Park

Houghton Park

Challenge Statement: 

The community working group for Houghton Park identified the “challenge” for their neighborhood as the need for a technology-based street improvement solution to promote pedestrian safety, enhance visibility, and encourage positive neighborhood experiences for community stakeholders such as residents, businesses, and students.

Key Objectives:

  • Enable more pedestrian activity along neighborhood streets and key commercial corridors.
  • Create brighter streets with more visibility to increase community members’ sense of safety.
  • Improve residents’ sense of safety, confidence, mental health, and comfort in the evenings and nights when they leave their homes and travel around the neighborhood.
  • Reduce vehicle speeds and the number of pedestrian and cyclist collisions.
  • Collect qualitative and quantitative data to assess residents’ perceptions of safety and anxiety over the duration of the pilot.
  • Support neighborhood engagement events related to the solution.

Selected Technology Solution: Comfort & Hays/ D2 Smart Lighting 
Pilot Duration: 12 months 

  • Omniflow Smart Lights at Houghton Park on the pathway between the parking lot and exercise station
  • Software: people-counting and air quality analytics features
Access tech briefs for Houghton Park in English, Spanish, Tagalog, and Khmer

                                                                             
Connectivity in the Ramona Park Neighborhood

Child on swing

Challenge Statement: 

The community working group for the Ramona Park neighborhood identified the “challenge” for their neighborhood as the need for an accessible, technology-based solution to provide efficient and reliable internet connectivity across the neighborhood’s public spaces for the community’s residents, businesses, and visitors.

Key Objectives:

  • Provide free, publicly-available internet connection for users that enables them to be civically engaged and socially and economically empowered.
  • Provide reliable internet connection for users that is high-speed with minimal disruptions to service.
  • Neighborhood users can access the internet safely, securely, and confidently no matter their cell provider, their personal device, their age, or their address.
  • Keep user’s data secure and promote privacy through strong cybersecurity practices.
  • Educate users on how to access the internet connectivity solution through public digital literacy and how-to content.
  • Provide a dashboard and usability reports to assess impact of the solution, and measurement of key performance indicators (KPIs) such as usage volume, download and upload speed, downtimes, and cybersecurity event logs and resolution outcomes.

Selected Technology Solution: Cisco
Pilot Duration: Permanent 

  • 9 Wi-Fi routers 
  • Educational signage and resources to learn about the Wi-Fi
Access tech briefs in English, Spanish, Tagalog, and Khmer

                                                                             
Park Utilization and Safety in the Westside Neighborhood

Silverado Park

Challenge Statement: 

The community working group for the Westside neighborhood identified the “challenge” for their neighborhood as the need for a secure, accessible, and community-building technology-based solution to propel park utilization and improve safety at Silverado Park for neighborhood residents, businesses, and visitors.

Key Objectives:

  • Increase overall utilization of the park
  • Reduce the number of violent incidents at Silverado Park.
  • Improve residents’ sense of safety, visibility, and comfort at night when they travel around the park.
  • Improve community members’ ability to engage with one another in the park and attend community events at night.
  • Educate users on the solution through public signage and informational content.
  • The solution is accessible to all, no matter where they come from or their language spoken at home.

Selected Technology Solution: CityData
Pilot Duration: 12 months

  • People-counting infrared sensors at Silverado Park
  • Software: Custom data dashboard for the City and members to visualize information about Silverado Park visits and duration.
Access tech briefs in EnglishSpanish, Tagalog, and Khmer

                                                                             
Safe Streets in the Willmore Neighborhood

Person on bike using bike lane

Challenge Statement: 

The community working group for the Willmore Neighborhood identified the “challenge” for their neighborhood as the need for a human-scale, accessible, simple, and non-threatening technology-based solution to promote pedestrian and cyclist safety and create a sense of community wellbeing in the Willmore neighborhood.

Key Objectives:

  • Enable more pedestrian and cyclist activity in the neighborhood, measured during both day and night.
  • Improve residents’ sense of safety, mental health, and kindness towards one another when they leave their homes and travel around the neighborhood.
  • Reduce the number of speeding incidents and the number of pedestrian and cyclist collisions.
  • Enable community members to take a neighborhood safe streets pledge to promote awareness about this issue.
  • Keep user’s data secure and private through non-invasive cybersecurity practices.
  • Improve environmental quality through reduced levels of noise pollution and air pollution.

Selected Technology Solutions: Numina
Pilot Duration: 12 months

  • 3 privacy-compliant sensor units to measure multimodal activity and evaluate the implementation of other safety related interventions.
  • Software: Data analytics dashboard to visualize pedestrian, cyclist, and vehicle counts, paths, heatmaps, trends, and additional safety analytics around speed, near misses, and more.
Access tech briefs in English, Spanish, Tagalog, and Khmer.