The Orange County Transportation Authority (OCTA), in cooperation with Caltrans, is improving 16 miles of the San Diego Freeway (I-405) between State Route 73 (SR-73) and Interstate 605 (I-605), including the new 405 Express Lanes from SR-73 to I-605. Traversing five cities, this segment of I-405 is the most traveled freeway in the nation, making community and public outreach a large priority in its success.

Diverse Community Engagement

Kleinfelder Construction Services (KCS) led efforts to provide a comprehensive public outreach program encompassing the pre-construction and construction phases. The program was strategic, robust, and included messaging tactics that met the needs of the local communities, which varied in cultural backgrounds, socioeconomic status, and multi-lingual access. The team utilized sophisticated and innovative methods to reach the County’s diverse audiences during each phase of the project. This project included unprecedented changes needed during the COVID19 pandemic that required the team to reevaluate engagement with the community by pivoting to virtual outlets.

Outreach Tactics

Since the start of construction in 2018, the KCS team hosted more than 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. Our team of graphic designers took detailed, hard-to-read traffic control plans and turned them into easily digestible detour maps that were shared through various outreach channels. This provided the community with a direct path forward to navigating through construction.

The team also provided relevant project updates and information through special emails, calls, and text alerts, and an interactive social media campaign. To help ensure all constituent communication was addressed in a timely manner, the team monitored a project helpline and dedicated email inbox. KCS coordinated with the project’s technical and construction teams to obtain thorough information to answer their multitude of varying questions, concerns, and claims.

Project Results

Various efforts led to the success of communications around the I-405 Improvements project, including the award-winning 405 Forward program for local businesses, a shift to virtual meetings and events, the use of geofencing to provide hyper-local information, and “Inside the 405,” a series of nine public videos highlighting progress throughout construction.

Project Details

Location:
Orange County, CA
Owner:
Orange County Transportation Authority