Gender Mainstreaming in City Comprehensive Plans, A Transportation Focus

Abstract

Gender mainstreaming is an effective tool to shape policies and planning in order to equally benefit all genders. This paper addresses gender mainstreaming practices with transportation policies, specifically with city comprehensive plans. Transportation is necessary for individual mobility, access, and economic engagement with society. Due to the economic disparities among groups of people, low-income people and women are often faced with different spatial and time mobility. Transportation policy is driving the planning process directly on the local level, through city comprehensive plans, specifically in the transportation section. City comprehensive plans are a broad and general document that set the vision for the city planners and policy makers for the next 20 years. This paper analyzes four city comprehensive plants transportation section alongside existing gender disparities in transportation to address whether the plans are serving the needs of all people and the existing disparities in the transportation system. Gender and transportation are overlooked in the present because there are no measures, guidance, or participation of users in the planning of the document or the systems in place. This paper goes beyond just quantifying gender and gender disparities, by utilizing a mixed-method approach to understand the needs to create a more equitable and inclusive system.