The Open Format and Citizen Participation in Transportation Planning

Recent developments in transportation planning and policy indicate that citizen participation and openness may receive less emphasis in the future in favor of more closed methods of decision making and control. Have the merits and drawbacks of citizen participation and openness changed significantly recently? This is hardly so. A survey revealed that the claimed advantages and disadvantages of the open format have been virtually the same since early history. The evaluation of advantages and disadvantages, however, has changed. Citizen participation and openness are closely related to values and power, and the very existence of the open format is dependent on the kind of power that dominates societal development in a given period of time. When the open format was introduced, a general commitment to social reform, environmental issues, and democratization of decision making dominated societal development. The open format was a result of, and well in line with, this commitment, which explains its rapid development and spread. Today a commitment to efficiency, neoclassical economics, and budget cuts dominates development in many instances. The trend for openness is being reversed along with the trend for considering social, environmental, and ethical issues in transportation planning and policy.