Abstract
The automobile commute makes an important contribution to carbon emissions but has proven stubbornly resistant to modal shift policy initiatives. In this paper we use theories of social practice to develop insights into why this stubbornness might exist, and what might help accelerate transitions to bus- and cycle-commuting. By analyzing qualitative data about everyday mobility in two UK cities, we examine how the availability of the constituent elements of bus- and cycle-commuting practices is crucial for modal shift to occur, but they are often absent. We also draw attention to time-space contingencies that render recruitment to low-carbon commuting practices more or less likely, including how commuting is sequenced with other social practices and how the sites of these practices interact with the affordances, and spatial infrastructure, of bus- and cycle-commuting. These insights lead us to argue that choice and land use planning focussed policy initiatives designed to invoke modal shift need to coexist in integrated policy configurations with initiatives designed to reshape both mobility and non-mobility practices. This means addressing the structural barriers caused by the lack of availability of the elements that constitute bus- and cycle-commuting, and intervening in the timing and spatiality of a range of social practices so as to reduce the tendency for commutes to have spatial and temporal characteristics that militate against the use of bus and cycle modes.
Highlights
IntroductionStructural interventions that use urban planning to make low carbon travel more feasible, through reductions in travel distance and time in particular (Handy, 1996; Naess, 2012), and policies that render car travel either more difficult or more expensive (Fujii et al, 2001; Thøgersen, 2009) have been deployed
We suggest that societal structures currently constrain the widespread existence of the competencies and meanings that would lead to greater uptake of low carbon commuting practices, necessitating policy that addresses such issues
What are the implications of our data revealing unique busand cycle-commuting practices which are only likely to recruit when specific material-competence-meaning elements are in place? At one level, we suggest it means that choice-based policies, seeking to ‘nudge’ people into choosing low carbon bus and cycle mobility as a smarter choice (Barr and Prillwitz, 2014), or tempting them using rational or behavioral economic logics (Marsden et al, 2014) so as to break the automobility habit (Schwanen et al, 2012), are likely to be limited in their effectiveness if the necessary materials, competences and meanings for recruitment to bus- and cycle-commuting do not exist, or are not valued
Summary
Structural interventions that use urban planning to make low carbon travel more feasible, through reductions in travel distance and time in particular (Handy, 1996; Naess, 2012), and policies that render car travel either more difficult or more expensive (Fujii et al, 2001; Thøgersen, 2009) have been deployed. Such multi-dimensional approaches to policy necessarily take account of the effects of broader societal structures on mobility behavior (Banister, 2008; Marsden et al, 2014). What unique insights can practice theory provide into factors affecting commuting mode, and the uptake of low carbon commuting? What does a practice theory perspective tell us about the configurations of policy (i.e., coexistence and collaborations between different policies) needed to invoke significant shifts to low carbon mobility? In dealing with these questions, two distinctive and interrelated contributions of practice theory are drawn upon and developed
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