Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
levels, with large houses and gardens, and access to the motor car (Gordon and Richardson,
1995; Bruegmann, 2006; Echenique and SOLUTIONS Consortium, 2009). For example:
The idea of planners turning our lives upside down in pursuit of a single-minded goal is
as horrible as it is alien. Newman and Kenworthy's world is the Kafkaesque nightmare
that Hayek always dreaded, a world where consumers have no choice, relative prices have
no role and planners are tyrants . . . Newman and Kenworthy have written a very troubling
paper. Their distortions are not innocent, because the uninformed may use them as
ammunition to support expensive plans for central city revitalisation and rail transit projects
or stringent land use controls in a futile attempt to enforce urban compactness . . . perhaps
Newman and Kenworthy would be well advised to seek out another planet, preferably
unpopulated, where they can build their compact cities from scratch with solar powered
transit.
(Gordon and Richardson, 1989, p. 342)
Hence the debate remains very much alive, and some important points are being made that
need to be addressed. The focus on the importance of individual preference is a useful critique
of the built environment determinism, but in the end offers no solution to societal problems
such as climate change and resource usage. There remains a huge gap in implementing the
policy relative to intentions, in terms of developing mass market rapid transit, walking and
cycling, integrating urban planning and transport planning, achieving polycentric urban form,
and in changing the vehicle fleet to more efficient vehicles. Much of this is due to the business
model we operate within (profit maximisation very often works against wider societal goals)
and also public aspirations (the sign value of products is developed by the marketing effort,
and consumption is shaped in a manner that makes profit). But the intractable problem remains:
that the climate change imperative demands a different pathway in terms of lifestyles, and
some progress soon.
Many alternative approaches are being developed to counter the entrenched level of
motorisation in most contexts. There are some very good emerging examples of sustainable
transport initiatives, but again progress is slow and the inertia is substantial. The good practice
is usually concentrated in a few urban centres, rather than being introduced across the city as
a whole. Such novel approaches can perhaps be encapsulated in the sustainable mobility
paradigm (Banister, 2008) with some emerging thinking in terms of addressing the convention
of increasing speed, distances and the need to prioritise slow transport and local activity
(Banister, 2011). In the richer countries, a major part of decarbonising the transport sector is
to reduce the need to travel (and actual travel), and in developing countries this translates to
reducing the projected (business as usual) growth in motorisation and distances travelled.
In addition to the strength of the case to decarbonise transport, there are substantial
co-benefits from reducing car use, particularly in cities. These include the health gains from
active lifestyles (Woodcock et al., 2007; Woodcock et al., 2009), urban design quality and
liveability in urban areas, costs of congestion, frustration in journey quality, independence
gains for children and others, and reductions in the numbers and severity of road accidents.
The key problem is in understanding how and to what extent the trend-break in car dependence
can be achieved. In many developing countries, this story is of prospective nature, in terms
of the incredible growth projected in car ownership and use. Many are on the growth path in
motorisation that the Western industrialised countries followed 50 years ago, although their
rate of increase is much faster. In these countries and cities, it is difficult to suggest that no
