Implementing transport’s ‘new realism’?

Abstract

Throughout Europe transport planning is experiencing a range of pressures associated with congestion on existing networks, growing awareness of the environmental damage of transport choices and cuts in public spending that preclude supply-led infrastructure solutions. In Britain these pressures are widely held to have resulted in a consensus on how to approach transport planning centred on a ?realism' about the potential of supply-led solutions to address traffic growth. This ?new realist' consensus principally involves a switch from providing for traffic growth to one of managing the demand for travel, particularly the use of private vehicles. However, the notion that such a consensus exists is questionable. This paper uses a sociological variant of an institutionalist approach and within this framework utilises policy discourse analysis to highlight the debate over new ways of thinking about, and acting upon, transport issues. A principal case study of Tyne and Wear is taken, supported by material from three other areas, to illustrate how the policy discourse of the 'new realism' is uneven across institutional and geographic space.The paper first provides some policy context for the discussion of these issues. It then moves on to discuss the methodology underpinning the research from which it is derived. The empirical material is then discussed in depth and possible ways of accelerating the new discourse are debated. Finally, some broader conclusions are drawn as to the likely implications of current transport planning trajectories.Traffic growth, environmental sustainability and the British policy responseThroughout Europe increasing mobility for many in society is leading to a particular set of transport policy choices. Growing congestion on road and rail networks, mounting evidence that road building generates more traffic, concerns over the environmental and social externalities of movement, restrictions on public spending and the increasing importance of tackling car-based travel in meeting global environmental agreements (such as reducing C02 emissions- where emissions from transport are increasing both in volume and in significance), have come together in a powerful challenge to the dominant policies of the latter half of the twentieth century. These factors have led to a growing awareness of the need to mobilise a range of solutions to transport policy issues, rather than simply relying on single mechanisms, be that road building or any other.The post-war paradigm for transport planning in Britain has been characterised by the phrase, 'predict and provide' (Owens, 1995). This view and its associated practices centre on predicting traffic growth and constructing a road-building programme to meet the demand. Recent debates, including contributions to this journal, have emphasised that this paradigm, or logic, has been discredited (Goodwin et al., 1991; Marvin and Guy, 1999). A different approach is emerging, underpinned by the notion that managing demand, rather than catering for it, provides the only realistic alternative.The notion of a 'new realism' is invoked (Goodwin et al., 1991) to describe an emergent consensus among transport planning policy communities that demand management is the way forward. Such an approach is based on the implementation of a package of policy measures and reflects changes in the detail of what is proposed. So, while there is little that is new in the policies themselves, it is in their emphases and implementation that they constitute a 'new' approach. The policies centre on the following:* improved public transport systems;* enhanced provision for pedestrians and cyclists;* traffic restraint in neighbourhoods and central areas;* the use of road pricing with hypothecation of revenue to realign charging to the point of use, and provide capital for implementing the other elements;* a greater emphasis on relationships with the land-use planning system and controls over the location of development in particular, through focusing attention on the spatial relationships of population, economic activity and services; and* little or no overall increase in road network capacity with much more limited road construction, for example, to link residential and employment areas, to bypass towns and villages, or to contribute to regeneration objectives, and with a careful eye on whether such construction would be likely to lead to significantly more traffic. …