User, Public, and Professional Perceptions of the Greenways in the Pearl River Delta, China

The perception of greenways has been intensively investigated to understand the attitudes of stakeholders and to study the preferences of greenway users. In the Pearl River Delta, there has been a long-term debate on the form and function of greenways in campaign-style development, but few studies have focused on the public perception of greenways. Through both onsite and online investigations, this study obtained first-hand data about the user perceptions of greenways in selected case studies and developed an overall understanding of the public perception of the Pearl River Delta (PRD) greenways. Moreover, to examine the academic debate, we further distributed questionnaires to groups that had professional educational backgrounds related to greenway planning. The results showed that, in contrast with the academic debate, the user, public and professional perceptions were positive toward PRD greenways. Although it has been commonly recognized that bikeways compose the primary form of PRD greenways, the results suggested that the public has multiple needs for greenways, in which the primary demands are recreation and transportation. The investigation also identified many issues in greenway practices regarding the accessibility of greenway spaces, the coherence of nonmotorized routes, and the landscape characteristics of the greenways. Finally, this study suggests that more effort should be placed on the everyday demands of greenways, including accessible recreational resources and safe, comfortable, and coherent nonmotorized routes.