Managing the Same Conflict From Both Sides of the Table 

Subhead: Community relations for a major transit infrastructure project, first for the builder, then for the city, and what changed when I’d already seen both sides. 

Meta: A major urban transit infrastructure project (organization anonymized) 

Situation 
A major urban transit infrastructure project had been approved and was under construction. The decision itself was final, but public frustration wasn’t: residents along the route continued to feel unheard, even though the project’s direction was no longer up for debate. 

Challenge 
Communicating with a community after a decision has already been made is one of the hardest problems in public communications: you can’t offer people the thing they actually want, which is a different outcome or some type of relief.  All you can often offer is to be genuinely heard, and to make the disruption around them feel managed rather than imposed. That challenge looks different depending on which side of the project you sit on. 

Approach, builder side 
Leading community relations for the construction contractor, whose primary mandate was delivering the project on time and on budget. My role was to protect the build schedule from community-driven disruption while keeping residents informed enough that frustration didn’t escalate into formal complaints or delays. 

Approach, representing the city 
Later leading stakeholder relations and the passenger and public safety program for the communications firm contracted by the city, embedded directly in the city’s project office and acting on its behalf. Having worked the builder side first gave me advantages most people on this file didn’t have: I understood the operational pressures driving the builder’s decisions, and I came in with already-established, trusted relationships, both with community stakeholders and with people on the city’s project team, rather than starting from zero on either front. My approach with the public stayed consistent throughout: listen first, understand their perspective, before responding. 

Result 
The safety program was scoped deliberately broad, reaching not just residents and business owners along the alignment, but anyone who encountered it, whether on foot, by wheels, by vehicle, or by public transit. Community-driven complaints and escalations stayed largely manageable, though not entirely eliminated, a realistic outcome for a project of this scale and public visibility. That was due in part to consistently prioritizing collaboration with the city over defending any one side’s position, and to an approach with residents that led with listening rather than messaging. 

Having sat on both sides of this kind of conflict, I’ve seen that the instinct to defend your organization’s position first is usually what escalates community frustration rather than resolving it. The more durable approach is to collaborate across organizational lines and let people feel heard before you respond.