One a basic level: the public has a right to opine about public works and to glean insight into the decision process behind them, even if the rationale behind the public’s grievances is ultimately not well founded.

(In my experience, the rationale for public layouts is “first come first serve,” meaning that the original civil engineer made a subjective design call decades ago and every subsequent change has simply accommodated it. In that way your comparison to software is apt, except for the part where I have a reasonable expectation of redress against public works and not against you.)