Citizen Competition for Mobility Planning

The aim of the Leipzig citizen competition was to intensify the participation of citizens in the continuation of the urban development plan for traffic and public space and it was conceived as a broad call for ideas. Three different categories of competition have been established, which correspond to the typical categories of transport planning:
o City-wide ideas
o Ideas for districts
o Small-scale ideas, e.g. for residential areas
These guidelines should create an incentive to participate. The categories were formed in order to be able to assign and evaluate the submitted ideas in the end. In addition, these ideas were intended as low-threshold offer to reach a broad public and motivate them to participate. Especially the two small-scale categories were particularly suitable for participation, because within this category, traffic issues from the immediate everyday life could be addressed. Citizens were able to comment on specific transport and mobility-related problems, they could express their needs. For example, a woman traveling with children and baby carriages has the need to find a walkway that has a comfortable width and is in a good condition, an older person may have similar needs, but someone else like a cyclist has the need of marked bike paths. So, the need depends on the persons and their different living conditions. Beside the articulation of the different needs, there was also a possibility to propose solutions, and bring these into the planning process.