A few days ago, the Department of Transportation launched a project with the University of Utah to design a better bus stop: instead of the typical "open meetings and workshops," Next Stop Design is seeking design submissions online from anyone and everyone. The site says the project's goal is to "advance public participation related to public transportation planning," and while that's a good byproduct, I think this project is really about new ways of doing government, and will, done right, probably yield better results than the traditional process.

The normal way of doing this sort of thing is to request proposals from prominent design firms that are familiar with the cumbersome government contracting process. These requests are posted on fedbizopps.com--a repository of federal government contract opportunities that, a colleague recently told me, have already been promised away by the time they appear on the site. So independent designers with good ideas are shut out. Next Stop Design is apparently trying to subvert that process through a much more democratic method. Good for them.

On top of being more efficient, involving the public in the creation of public spaces may give the public a greater stake in those spaces: if the public had a more direct voice in the maintenance of public spaces, maybe they would value them more.

All that said, I have a criticism: the site doesn't attract professional designers. As a result, it could discourage the government from doing similar projects in the future.

Reading the site, it's not apparent whether the sponsors are making any commitments to the highest vote-getters. Given recent snafus with similar government competitions, this is understandable. But at least they could be tentative, and vow to choose one of the designs and work with the designer in its creation. They can do this without being bound to the people's choice. Without even a hint of future funding, why would a professional designer devote time to this project?

The site does say that this isn't merely a public relations project, but an actual attempt to design a bus stop:

Traditionally, government agencies ask for public input on planning projects by holding open meetings and workshops. The purpose of this project is to get this public input in a different way: online.

But so far, most of the submitted designs are from schools. There's nothing wrong with that if this is just a public participation project. But if they are serious about experimenting with new ways of doing business, they need to attract more serious submissions. Government managers avoid projects like this because of the risk of public failure, and if this project fails to get good submissions, it will only discourage similar projects in the future.

So if someone from the project is reading this, tell potential contributors you're serious. Throwing in a dollar amount couldn't hurt. It needn't be a lot. You'd be surprised by how little it takes to get some amazing submissions from freelance designers looking to expand their portfolios.