Participatory Planning Approach and Performance of Pedestrian Footbridge Projects in Nairobi Metropolitan, Kenya

Pedestrian footbridges are essential transportation infrastructures designed to enhance safety and ensure smooth traffic flow, yet urban regions in Kenya continue to face a troubling rise in road fatalities, with 4,579 deaths recorded in 2023. Despite substantial public investments reaching 1.3 million dollars per structure, 43 percent of pedestrian-related crashes in Nairobi occur within 500 meters of a bridge, highlighting a significant performance gap and underutilization. This study investigated the influence of Participatory Planning Approach (PPA) on the performance of pedestrian footbridge projects. The study was anchored on Public Interest Theory, adopting a descriptive cross-sectional survey design. The unit of analysis comprised 35 pedestrian footbridge projects across Nairobi, Kiambu, Machakos, and Kajiado Counties. Using a census technique for key stakeholders and random sampling for end users, the study realized a response rate of 89.6 percent. Primary data collected via structured questionnaires were analyzed using Pearson correlation and linear regression analysis. The study concludes that PPA has a statistically significant influence on the performance of pedestrian footbridge projects. The study recommends that the metropolitan agencies mandate technical synthesis reports to demonstrate the integration of stakeholder needs into engineering blueprints.   Received:  23 May  2026 / Accepted: 30 June  2026 / Published: July 2026