Park Heights Community Project: Enhancement of Public Involvement in Transportation Planning

Details

• Creators:
  St. Pierre, M.
• Corporate Creators:
  Morgan State University
• Subject/TRT Terms:
  Needs Assessment Public Participation Transportation Needs Transportation Planning
• Resource Type:
  Research Paper
• Geographical Coverage:
  Baltimore (Maryland) ; United States
• Corporate Publisher:
  Morgan State University
• Abstract:
  The purpose of this paper is two-fold: namely to provide an assessment of the transportation needs of the Park Heights community and to generate a strategic plan focusing on citizen participation in possible transportation-related facilities. The methodology used involved doing a demographic appraisal, an ethnographic overview of the community, and in-depth interviews with community leaders, such as pastors, leaders of community organizations, police officers, and a representative from the mayor's office. The information from a review of the literature on citizen participation in matters related to transportation facilities, as well as that garnered from the methods used, revealed that, transportation, although of significance to elderly churchgoers and others without cars-who did not wish, or were not entitled, to avail themselves of unofficial transportation facilities, like hacks, taxis, and privately owned vans-was not as important to community residents as crime, drugs, boarded-up houses, trash, and alleged insouciance on the part of elected officials. Factors such as race, crime, homeownership, and, in particular, already constituted entities (e.g., churches and community organizations) were related to citizen participation. Based on this information, three models were identified as relevant to facilitating citizen participation: ( 1) the social disorganization model that speaks to the mobilization of individuals on the basis of fear; (2) the public relations model that seeks to mobilize individuals by way of advertising to techniques used in the mass media to persuade potential customers to purchase a particular product; and (3) the collective action model, whereby mobilization occurs by recourse to a variety of resources.
• Format:
  PDF
• Collection(s):
  University Transportation Centers US Transportation Collection
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:3e53e450f72a31903494fb9b7cbccaf9215467af1bc46599515b06d914a3e959000086c9092d8f2b0743600c5fb9b7cb89806ee8e635978c4cf231fd92ebd46d
• Download URL:
  https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/15356/dot_15356_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 2.46 MB ]