At the end of May, transit geeks and activists from across the city will have the opportunity to get together and engage in a dialogue and discuss a range of topics.
TransitCamp takes place on Saturday, May 30th from noon to 4:30pm at the World Trade Centre Edmonton (9990 Jasper Avenue).
TransitCamp is not a new idea. Other TransitCamps have successfully been undertaken in cities such as Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal as well as a number of cities in the US. For Edmonton, however, this is a first, though organizers hope that it will not be the last.
In the past, ETS has put on Community Conferences at which they discussed their future plans. These conferences were very much one-way events — lots of information was dispensed, though there was little room for public input. Organizers are hoping to change that with TransitCamp.
Mack Male, one of the organizers of the event, said that TransitCamp is intended to be an “un-conference,” without the traditional model of agendas and speakers presenting to participants, but rather, where the participants are the speakers.
There will be a few planned sessions, including Skype sessions with presenters from Vancouver and Toronto. But attendees wishing to present will be given an opportunity to sign up to do so at the beginning of the event.
According to Male, ETS has been very supportive of TransitCamp and plans to participate, though it is important to note that it is by no means an ETS event.
Councillor Don Iveson, whose office is sponsoring the event, says he will be enthusiastically attending the event.
There are a few things Iveson hopes will come out of this, with the most important being that the event provides a productive dialogue between ETS and their users and provide opportunity for users of the transit system to give suggestions for ETS to consider and possibly implement.
More information can be found at transitcampedmonton.ca or by emailing transitcampedmonton@gmail.com.
