City of Kingston Brings Its Integrated Mobility Plan Open House Online

As part of its Integrated Mobility Plan, the City of Kingston is planning for the future of transit, roads, bike lanes, and other transportation infrastructure. In spring 2026, the project team used Konveio to extend an in-person open house online, giving community members more time and flexibility to explore detailed project information and provide feedback.

Problem

The Integrated Mobility Plan is a long-term transportation planning initiative looking at how the City will approach transit, roads, bike lanes, and other mobility needs. Public engagement for the plan has taken place through a variety of online and in-person formats.

For its spring 2026 engagement, the project team planned an open house featuring 28 poster boards with detailed information. Participants could review the materials and provide feedback in person. But the City regularly hears two competing requests from residents: some want opportunities to participate online because they cannot attend an event at a specific date and time, while others value the ability to attend in person and speak directly with staff.

The team wanted an online experience that closely mirrored the in-person event while extending the opportunity to participate beyond a single evening. 

Solution

The City used Konveio to transform 28 open house boards into an interactive virtual experience, allowing residents to explore the same information presented in person and comment directly on the materials.

Konveio was embedded within the City’s existing EngagementHQ project page, the established online hub for the Integrated Mobility Plan and related official plan initiatives. This enabled the City to maintain a familiar engagement destination while extending participation online.  Through the integration with EngagementHQ, residents could review materials, navigate to specific locations, and provide feedback without creating a separate Konveio account. Registration and access were managed through a single platform, creating a streamlined experience for both residents and City staff.

“Every time we add a layer of technology, it becomes another barrier for some people,” the City’s engagement lead explained. “Konveio embedded really nicely into the platform that we’ve been using.”

The City promoted both the in-person and virtual opportunities through its existing project communications. Project followers were notified before the event that they could participate online if they could not attend. Following the event, the City continued promoting the virtual open house through newsletters, social media, and paid campaigns.

This allowed the open house to remain available beyond a single meeting and gave staff flexibility to promote the engagement at strategic moments throughout the comment period.

Impact

More opportunities to participate: By keeping the virtual open house available after the in-person event, the City removed the constraint of participating at one specific time and place. Residents could review detailed transportation planning materials and provide feedback when it worked for them.

Approximately 1,600 meaningful interactions: The virtual open house recorded more than 1,600 touches on the documents, indicating that visitors were scrolling through and interacting with the materials. For the City, this provided an important measure of the open house’s value as both an engagement and educational tool. Participants submitted approximately 140 comments through Konveio. While the project team initially anticipated a larger number of commenters, staff found the feedback to be more substantive than expected and useful to the team developing the plan.

“It would have been an impossibly busy evening to try and get all that feedback in one night,” the engagement lead said.

The extended engagement period:  This created opportunities for deeper conversations. Some participants left feedback through Konveio and then followed up with the project team through other communication channels to ask questions or continue the discussion.

A repeatable model for virtual open houses: Internally, the project provided the City with a successful example of how to translate a physical open house into a digital experience using tools it already had.

The City had previously experimented with surveys to recreate open-house-style engagement online, but found that approach cumbersome. Konveio offered a smoother way to present detailed materials and collect contextual feedback.

Internally, success was also notable because staff assembled the Konveio engagement on a short timeline. 

“This is what we were able to do with a week’s notice,” the engagement lead said. “Imagine what we could do if you gave us three or four weeks’ notice.”