Path creation for urban mobility transitions

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine spatiality of transitions by combining aspects of urban form to policy analysis. It aims to increase understanding of how urban form relates to potential effects of transport policies on urban mobility transitions. Design/methodology/approach – Novel analytical framework combines concepts of path dependence, path creation and path destabilisation to three urban fabrics (walking, transit and car cities), to study the transition potential of recent transport policy measures influencing the Helsinki region in Finland. Findings – Analysis showed that the potential effects of single policy measures often reach over all three urban fabrics. A policy measure may simultaneously contain elements of both path dependence, i.e. support for fossil-fuel based private motoring in the car city and path creation, i.e. stimulation of innovations in transit or walking cities. Policy outcomes are often conditional on implementation of other policy measures. For transition governance, this indicates that policy mixes should both destabilise car cities and enforce path creation in walking and transit cities. Research limitations/implications – Findings are based on potential rather than evaluated impacts and a limited sample of policies. Practical implications – Findings support previous research on the importance of policy coherence: multiple policies and coherence across domains are important. They demonstrate the usefulness of analysing recent or planned policies from the transition perspective. Originality/value – The paper provides novel insights by combining policy analysis to the spatial model of overlapping urban fabrics. In addition, it applies the concepts of path dependence, path creation and path destabilisation in a new way.