Community Acceptance of Highway Corridor Development

Citizen inputs are virtually prerequisite to community acceptance of public works projects. Succes in citizen participation—and thus public acceptance—rests entirely on the degree to which the citizens believe their inputs will have meaningful effect on resulting plans and decisions. An innovative process developed in Louisville, Ky., in response to these problems and pitfalls is described. The process was utilized in the planning of the upgrading of an existing, inadequate expressway. Over 2,000 citizens were involved in the process that began at the very start of the planning process and continued systematically throughout. Techniques employed were designed: (1) To give full opportunity for individuals and groups to articulate perceived needs, values, and priorities; and (2) to identify community-wide concerns and priorities—in other words, a general context—against individual and neighborhood needs which could be measured relative to the expressway planning program.