Transportation planning continues to expand beyond traditional engineering and
economic performance measures toward a broader scope of impacts across space and
society. However, the attitudes of transportation planners as they balance their expert
knowledge against public insights are not well-understood. We test a two-dimensional
attitudinal framework using survey data from 311 U.S. and Canadian transportation
planners. We reveal four attitudinal categories using principal component analysis, and
hypothesis testing shows significant differences in personal and institutional attributes
across these categories. We discuss what our results mean for training and regulatory
measures striving to influence planner attitudes before proposing future directions for
research.

• My way or the highway? Framing transportation planners’ attitudes in negotiating professional expertise and public insight