Advancing Transportation Justice by Addressing Procedural Inequities in Public Involvement: An Investigation of Design Thinking in Transportation Decision-Making

摘要

Transportation is a lifeline. Without access to transportation, opportunities for people to thrive and prosper are limited. However, traditional approaches to transportation planning largely ignore the social dimensions of travel, which contribute to transportation injustice. In the United States, federal legislation introduced public involvement into the regional transportation planning process, paving the way for local communities to participate in decision-making—but a mismatch persists. Despite the intent for public involvement that allows for inclusive and meaningful participation, in reality this involvement is often reactive and superficial without direct influence on final outcomes. Re-envisioning public involvement can help advance transportation justice by addressing procedural inequities in transportation planning. The human-centered mobility (HCM) paradigm embodies a more expansive view of transportation that acknowledges the heterogeneity of travelers and focuses on lived experiences with the transportation system. Design thinking, which like HCM is grounded in the human-centered framework, offers a problem-solving approach that first seeks to understand the end users' needs to inform the development of solutions. This qualitative study explored to what extent the use of design thinking as a public involvement strategy could yield inclusive and meaningful participation to address transportation challenges in three U.S. metropolitan regions through systems mapping and in-depth interviews. This study suggests that a human-centered approach to public involvement can achieve progress towards transportation equity by gathering input from diverse perspectives rooted in lived experiences. However, procedural and political barriers exist that can impede the realization of meaningful outcomes related to improved transportation access.