Expressing Vibrancy project collects data on downtown Sudbury

A project to gather public feedback about downtown Sudbury is moving into another phase.

Expressing Vibrancy gets people into the city centre to walk around, share their ideas on the current state of the downtownand what improvements can be made.

Participant Crystal McCollom recently took part in a walk on Durham Street.She said she has concerns with accessibility in some downtown buildings.

"The buildings on this street are older," she said."Therefore, they probably won't be accessible in accessing higher floors, as well as the step up to even get into the front door of the building."

Resident Wendy Watson also took part in the walk. She said there is need for improvement, but added there's already been a lot of work done.

"The plants, the gardens and the streetscaping," she said. "It's great to see business owners, property owners that are actually improving their buildings."

Moving forward

Jeremy Freiburger is with the project. He helped develop it a number of years ago in southern Ontario, after realizing communities didn't really have a way to measure culture and vibrancy in a community.

"They had still talked a lot about what a great neighbourhood should look like and how culture could be a part of that ... but no one said how to measure that," he said.

Phase one of the project, which included taking an inventory of the downtown area, including vacant buildings and public art, was completed earlier this year. Phase two hasresidents walking downtown and providing feedback.

Freiburger said phase three will take place this fall.

"We'll be showing [residents] video and audio of their neighbourhood and asking them a whole pile of questions that they'll answer on tablets," he said.

"While they're doing that, the plan is to have headsets which is sort of like this headband you can wear that does an EEG on your brain while you're doing something."

He said once all the data is collected, a final report will be given to Downtown Sudbury and the development corporation, which will include suggestions for improvement.