Celebrating the I-405 Improvement Project Completion
The Public Outreach team at Kleinfelder Construction Services (KCS) recently celebrated the completion of Orange County Transportation Authority’s (OCTA) I-405 Improvement Project; one of the largest design-build projects in California.
Dedication Event for Project Completion
The KCS Public Outreach team planned and executed the I-405 Dedication Event, “A Faster Future is Here,” which was held in Costa Mesa, CA on December 1 and coincided with the opening of the 405 Express Lanes. Spearheaded by Dedicated Community Liaison Aja Stansell, the team began planning months prior to the event to execute a seamless and exemplary event. Highlights included food trucks, an innovative “Tech Tent” that showcased project improvements with a 360-degree virtual reality station, interactive screens and videos, and a grand entrance featuring banners and creative signage that welcomed each corridor city to recognize all the project partners. Attended by more than 700 people, including OCTA Board of Directors, local dignitaries, project corridor city partners, and constituents with vested interest in the project, this model event was the largest event hosted by OCTA for any of their infrastructure projects and garnered earned media from more than 20 local and regional media outlets.
Comprehensive Public Outreach Program
As the Prime Public Outreach Consultant, KCS led efforts to provide a comprehensive public outreach program nearing $7.5 million from pre-construction and construction phases. The program was strategic, robust and included messaging tactics that met the needs of the communities which varied in cultural backgrounds, socioeconomic status, and multi-lingual access. The team, overseen by Project Manager Anna Finlay and Dedicated Community Liaison Lead Joey Fernandez, utilized sophisticated and innovative methods to reach the County’s diverse audiences during each phase of the project. This included the unprecedented changes needed during the global pandemic that required the team to reevaluate their engagement with the community by pivoting to virtual outlets. Relying on our close partnerships with the five corridor cities, traffic management teams, and the project construction teams, KCS implemented the program with OCTA’s full support.
Since the start of construction in 2018, the team hosted 150+ neighborhood meetings, open houses, and public meetings; canvassed nearly 1.2 million construction flyers throughout the various communities; and participated in close to 100 local community events. Led by Ed Dielman, our team of graphic designers took detailed, hard-to-read traffic control plans and turned them into easily digestible detour maps that we shared through various outreach channels. This provided the community with a direct path forward to navigating through construction. We provided relevant project updates and information designed to provide local and global audiences through special emails, call and text alerts, and a social media campaign that were engaging and interactive. We monitored the project helpline and email to ensure all constituent communication was addressed in a timely manner. We coordinated with the project’s technical and construction teams to obtain thorough information to answer their multitude of varying questions, concerns, and claims.
Award-winning Campaigns
In addition to this robust campaign, the team created and implemented the award-winning 405 Forward Program which allowed for the team to connect with more than 2,000 local project-impacted businesses along the project corridor and provided much needed support during the pandemic. Over 200 local businesses participated in the program, 80% of which were Vietnamese and Latinx business owners. To address the loss of in-person meetings, KCS implemented virtual meetings via Zoom which were also recorded and uploaded to the project’s YouTube channel and website. This necessary change in venues allowed constituents to continue to receive the relevant project information while adhering to the shelter-at-home mandates across the state. Due to this change, OCTA saw an increase in community meeting attendance and gave constituents an opportunity to receive our message at anytime from anywhere. Another innovative change we implemented was utilizing geofencing as a viable tool for messaging impacted communities. In doing so, we obtained 4.1 million construction alert views, allowing the community to receive our message at the tap of their finger. The team also created and hosted “Inside the 405,” a nine-part series of short videos highlighting the milestones on the project at its mid-point of construction. These creative and innovative methods of outreach earned KCS and OCTA more than 14 industry awards for the project. Watch the Inside the 405 series here.
Core KCS team members include Anna Finlay, Joey Fernandez, Aja Stansell, Jessica Ochoa, Ed Dielman, Erika Dominick, Anthony Lopez, Gina Chapa, and Jocelyn Jimenez-De Leon.
About the Project
In cooperation with OCTA and the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) the $2.08 billion highway infrastructure project improved 16 miles of the I-405 as well as demolished and rebuilt 18 bridges, 187 retaining and sound walls, and 58 ramps and interchanges, and constructed the new 405 Express Lanes in Orange County. Traversing five cities, this segment of I-405 is the most traveled freeway in the nation, making the outreach campaign a large priority on this massive infrastructure project.
Learn more about the I-405 Improvement Project here, or the 405 Express Lanes here.
