Neighborhood Mobility Plan

Community-Driven Active Transportation Plan

Bridging the Gap In Safe And Accessible Transportation

With almost no existing pedestrian or bicycle infrastructure and inadequate public transportation, the unincorporated California communities of Thermal and Oasis suffer a severe lack of mobility options. In addition, residents of these disinvested rural communities have often struggled to get the necessary funding to make the improvements to infrastructure that they desired.

Kounkuey Design Initiative (KDI) partnered with community members, local nonprofits, and the Riverside County Department of Transportation to elevate the underrepresented voices of these communities and advocate for improved mobility options. The result is a community-driven active transportation plan that features a comprehensive multimodal network more than 10 times as expansive as the current infrastructure.

The Neighborhood Mobility Plan for the Communities of Thermal & Oasis is the recipient of a 2020 National Planning Achievement Award for Transportation.

The mobility plan includes both short- and long-term action items to balance immediate needs and desires with residents' communal vision for the future, aiming to increase transportation safety by proposing implementable, environmentally sustainable, and context-sensitive solutions.

These action items include: developing new pedestrian and bicycle facilities, increasing visibility for students with crosswalk markings and signage at intersections near schools, implementing a vanpool program, and creating a resident transportation task force to communicate needs to community councils and the county transportation department.

Residents participating in a Video Voice session with CalWalks and the planning team to identify and illustrate transportation barriers within their neighborhoods. Photo courtesy KDI.