Toward Environmental Justice in Transportation Decision Making with Structured Public Involvement

Abstract

Environmental justice (EJ), in the form of distributional justice, is mandated by a 1994 Executive Order. However, EJ is not easily achieved. EJ research can be divided into identification and mitigation strategies. EJ mitigation strategies intersect with public involvement, which in transportation has a long, and often controversial, history. This paper examines how a philosophy based on John Rawls’ theories of procedural justice and access to justice can address the need to achieve distributional justice. To improve procedural justice, the authors examine how effective large-group processes can deliver high-performance public involvement. Methodological barriers and the role of technologies such as electronic polling and visualization are discussed. The authors propose four process metrics for public involvement. On the basis of data on structured public involvement projects, the authors argue that such processes enhance procedural justice and thereby address specific EJ aims. These data illustrate that realizing this potential improvement will require a philosophical shift to a higher Arnstein ladder level, the identification and use of appropriate methodologies for involving large groups, and the integration of their valuations into effective decision support systems.

Identifying Misalignments between Public Participation Process and Context in Urban Development

“…When the public participation process does not align with participants' trust, individuals may choose to not participate, or those that do attend events may - [20]withhold input or be obstructionist. Eversole [53] describes a community consultation process for an aboriginal arts and economic development program in Australia.…”

“…Anger arose amongst participants because they felt empowerment and capacity building was poorly executed and treated as a formality [54]. Conversely, Bailey et al [20] found that reducing skill demands of participants can produce broader participation and improve the input received through the process.…”

“…Finally, there is a dearth of evaluative studies of participatory processes in peer-reviewed literature [5,20], and this is partially responsible for the insufficient collection of directives for designing public participation. Defining the misalignments between process and context provides a framework for evaluating public participation processes as we can now ask how well a public participation process is aligned to the local context.…”

“…Supportive perspectives contend that public participation builds trust between participants and experts [16], and between the public and decision makers [5]; facilitates conflict resolution [17]; establishes support for implementation [18,19]; creates equitable processes, which in turn produce just outcomes [20]; fosters social learning and builds capacity in individuals as well as across society [21][22][23]; engages cific context, they note, includes "stakeholders, applicable mandates, [and] resource availability (p. 25)". All of these issues may be influenced by and specific to the location where a participatory process is being designed and/or carried out.…”

Aligning Public Participation to Stakeholders’ Sustainability Literacy—A Case Study on Sustainable Urban Development in Phoenix, Arizona

“…The majority of published papers on public participation are theory-based, and there are far fewer examples of empirical studies [12]. The magnitude of empirical research on the topic lags behind both the theoretical and practitioner communities [11,13], due in part to a lack of evaluative studies on public participation and stakeholder engagement processes [14][15][16].…”