Municipal decision-making for sustainable transportation: Towards improving current practices for street rejuvenation in Canada

Abstract

Many cities have adopted plans or policies to attain sustainable transportation objectives, including the redesign and rehabilitation of streets that favor active and public transportation. However, the implementation of any sustainable transportation plan is often riddled with various organizational and communicational obstacles. In order to understand the reasons behind these obstacles, a qualitative research study was conducted with professionals employed in eleven cities, ranging in size from 40,000 to 500,000 inhabitants, in the province of Quebec, Canada. The objective was to paint a picture of current decision-making practices, to describe the characteristics of the participants’ ideal decision-making process and to explore the suitability of spatial multicriteria decision support systems within sustainable transportation planning. Based on the findings, a series of guidelines are proposed to improve the integration of sustainable transportation concepts in street rejuvenation decision-making process.