On The Mechanism Of Public Participation In Urban Transportation Planning

Social and economic development results in the process of urbanization and the surging demand for urban transportation. Rational and efficient transportation planning can facilitate urban transportation, relief traffic pressure and decrease the consumption of urban resources. Public participation in transportation planning encourages citizens to participate in the planning, operating and supervising of urban transportation planning, which is considered as a representation of civil rights. It emerges with the economic development as well as the improvement and mature of legislation. Comprehensive public participation mechanism is a significant approach to optimize resource allocation and promote the utilization of transportation facilitations, which is essential to urban transportation planning.This paper discusses the issue of public participation in urban transportation planning. First, starting from the definition of public participation and classification of public, it investigates the means and procedures of transportation planning. Second, it analyzes the influencing factors of transportation planning and evaluates the levels of public participation. Third, referring to the case study of Puget Sound transportation plan, it illustrates the public participation mechanism in USA, as well as in UK and Germany. At last, according to the analysis of Shenzhen subway planning, it demonstrates the significance of public participation and discusses the state quo and problems of our nation's practice in transportation planning. In addition, it provides several propositions to the standardization of public participation process in order to motivate the legislations of public participation in urban transportation planning.