Effects of stakeholder participation on the quality of bicycle infrastructure. A case of Rattanakosin bicycle lane, Bangkok, Thailand

Abstract

Urban infrastructure development including cycling-inclusive transport planning requires a proper institutional arrangement where stakeholder participation is considered as an important component. In Bangkok’s old town (Rattanakosin area), the bicycle tourist route was transformed in 2008 into a dedicated bicycle lane. Following its completion, the physical environment of the bicycle lane has gradually been altered overtime for more than a decade by the involvement of various groups of stakeholders. The objective of this article is to explain how stakeholder participation affects the quality of Rattanakosin bicycle lane. The data was collected through semi-structured interviews with the stakeholders and triangulated with observation and documented content analysis. Data ordering and data coding are used as a data analysis method to create a frequency distribution. The findings show that stakeholder participation affects the quality of Rattanakosin bicycle lane in terms of safety (segregation from other traffics) and comfort (hindrance or obstacles on the bicycle lane). Bottom-up active participation where cycling-related NGOs involved in the co-production process creates positive changes to the Rattanakosin bicycle lane whereas belated inclusion of operational stakeholders who were directly affected by the project led to conflicts and negative changes to the bicycle lane. Besides, having a professional facilitator and effective conflict resolution accelerates the consensus-building of the participatory process. Therefore, the presence of proper participatory typology and inclusiveness of stakeholders are essential to ensure a positive outcome.