In recent years, the construction of urban underground roads is more and more extensive, which has become an important means to solve the traffic problems in major cities. Because of the irreversibility of underground engineering, the comparison and selection of construction methods in the early stage of engineering research is usually a very important work. Open excavation and shield are two common construction methods, which are widely used in urban underground roads and often used for comparative analysis of construction methods. This paper first summarizes the main factors considered in the construction method selection of urban underground road in the planning stage, then analyzes the advantages and disadvantages of the two construction methods in the implementation and operation stage, and then through the introduction of two engineering examples, expounds the content of the construction method selection in the actual work, and finally ,some suggestions are put forward to deal with several key points in the planning and design of urban underground roads。