Planning the mobile metropolis. Transport for people, places and the planet (original) (raw)
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Following Illich's (1974) notion of convivial tools and the distinction he makes between "self-propelled transit" and "motorized transport" of mobility, we apply the emerging paradigm of degrowth to urban mobility. Based on the degrowth literature and Illich's work, we derive principles and criteria for the mobility of a degrowth society that include institutional, energy and material use, infrastructure, local environmental impacts, social impacts and justice, proximity and speed, and autonomy. To ground our analysis in realworld conditions, we consider the practical perspective of mobility and add another set of criteria: comfort and safety, travel time, monetary cost, and health. We then compare urban mobility options, including recently developed hybrid mobility and sharing schemes. Our results show that, although private means have an advantage in terms of personal practicality, they are not desirable from a degrowth perspective, due to their high social and environmental costs and as constituting a source of urban injustice. Public, hybrid, and self-propelled mobility options would become more practical if such injustices were recognised, and if effective public policies challenged the radical monopoly of cars. Further, hybrid options and sharing/pooling schemes have the potential to reduce the use of private means for metropolitan mobility. The adoption of this degrowth framework can enrich debates on sustainable urban mobility and moves beyond the common proposition of promoting public transport as the solution.
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The transport sector, especially in growing cities, faces challenges relating to the climate, local environment, congestion, funding and equality, and uncertainties over political leadership, self-driving vehicles, citizens" reactions, and how the system is understood. Despite ambitious goals and investments, problems escalate via motoring"s self-supporting processes: more cars, more roads, longer journeys, urban sprawl, more cars .... Neither technical streamlining nor investing in public transport and attractive urban environments can trump the process. This paper examines whether we can use the methods of the fourth industrial (r)evolution to transform the urban-transport system. Starting points are: the role of transport in creating accessibility; the sector"s inherent logic and vast unused capacity, particularly in infrastructure; and the methods and business models of the rapidly expanding digital-platform monopolies. A feasible future is described, its basis a digital multimodal urban-transport platform for information and payment, founded on the sector"s base services: room on the streets, roads, rails, car parks and public transport. The technology exists but institutional problems abound. Radical public-sector service innovations are required. The paper identifies opportunities and obstacles. It concludes by evaluating the potential to realize these ambitious goals, looking at public transport"s role in a reorganized system of this kind. 1. Introduction Many remedies have been suggested to solve the growing transport problems that cities, mainly in the West, are facing (Santos et al. 2010a, b)hugely expensive economic problems and frightening inefficiency; major congestion and a lack of predictability; ecological problems resulting in climatic effects that are hard to address, damage to local environments through noise pollution, barriers, exhaust gases and particle emissions, and the use of valuable urban space; and social problems such as inequality in illness and death, and in access to necessities such as work and amenities such as shopping and recreation (Niedzielski & Boschmann 2014). The problems are so great, and ambitions so high, especially in terms of the climate, that small gradual changes are insufficient, if they cannot quickly overcome the resilience of the current transport system. Numerous proposals aim to increase capacity, build more roads, more efficient engines, or develop more eco-friendly fuel, measures that have failed to show any radical transformative power. Any improvements are consumed, wholly or partly, by increased consumption, larger vehicles and longer journeys. Life-cycle perspectives are routinely overlooked: the fact that manufacture, maintenance and eventual disposal of vehicles, fuel and infrastructure have a significant environmental impact. Major investment in public transport, cycling initiatives and courses to wean motorists off cars yield only marginal benefits, if these carrots are not used alongside sticks.
International Journal of Urban Sustainable Development, 2014
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In advanced industrial countries the societal values, in line with Locke's philosophy, tend to put the emphasis on individual achievements rather than on group solidarity, on the individual's rights, rather than on his duties. Gender complementarities give way to equal access. Producers of consumer goods or services and their marketing advisers have made good use of this trend through detailed customer socio-cultural typologies and refined market segmentation. In particular the automobile industry has diversified its products to suit individual tastes and quest for individual recognition as well as convenience and comfort. The automobile, together with the individual detached home, reflects a change in social values sometimes referred to as "Me culture" or "mass individualism" (GAUCHET, 1985). This has been a major factor in urban change towards lower density forms of urbanisation because of the space consumption by the automobile and its parking (ILL. 1:...