Gaining citizen acceptance of highways is one of the most difficult assignments for the highway planner. Legislators have underlined community values for special consideration in highway planning. However, there is little agreement about the nature of community values or how to measure them. Of the various procedures used to identify community values, the attitude survey is one of the most frequently utilized. In practice, opinions are often measured, instead of attitudes. Opinions are simple views, judgments, or beliefs having to do with specific situations. By their nature they are inherently unstable and are open to influence and change by social pressure. The use of opinions as a tool, therefore, has little predictive value. Attitudes, however, are considered more basic and complex than opinions. They relate to rather abstract elements such as time, convenience, aesthetics, and education. An attitude is a learned predisposition to behave in a consistent manner in a given situation, and as such, attitudes are more enduring than opinions hence, attitude assessment is a more reliable basis for prediction of terminal action than opinion study. A variety of techniques exists within the social sciences for attitude assessment. Several of these projective techniques can be adapted for use in predicting behaviour of those affected by the location and construction of new highways. Through the use of projective techniques, attitudes toward basic concepts within the community can be established. From these attitudes, community values can be be determined. The reaction to a given aspect of a projected facility can be predicted reliably by knowing the relative importance of attitudinal factors. /author/.
Abstract