Urban densification and sustainable mobility in a post-socialist city. Reconstruction of the science and business district development in Gdańsk

Abstract

The transport land-use nexus lies at the core of the scientific debate on sustainable mobility. Researchers' insights suggest that densification can lead to better accessibility by reducing travel needs and distances, thus changing the modal split. However, lack of consistent transport policies, that accompany densification, can have side effects: increased congestion and pollution. Although analyses of the interaction between urban intensification and transportation planning have been conducted before, there is still a lack of knowledge of the form of that interaction in post-socialist cities. The process of emergence of the science and business district in Gdansk - a large, post-socialist city in Central Europe – provides an instructive subject for the analysis of this interaction. Descriptive and visual reconstruction of the land development and transport system performance, along with the analysis of strategic and planning documents, reveal inconsistencies in local policy and barriers to its implementation. A set of factors identified in the research indicates that the implementation of the accessibility and mobility strategies are deficient, leading to the disturbance of the balanced cycle model. On the one hand, these factors preserve an unfavourable modal split, but on the other hand, they may trigger bottom-up reactions and market initiatives.