Is Urban Transport Sustainable?

Abstract

Once the privilege of the elite, personal mobility is a freedom bestowed by modernity on the general public through technology. The physical negotiation of space by people in pursuit of social values (access to work, friends, child care, education, recreation and supplying the home) is part of urban social life. Road freight vehicles provide a flexibility of supply that keeps profits up and costs down for businesses in the ‘consuming’ city. But the benefits of freedom and flexibility are illusory if the opportunity costs of providing for unending mobility are never considered, distances to be covered increase, travel becomes a compulsory, stressful, dangerous and expensive routine and the costs of mobility are merely shifted from the individual to society and the environment. This book explores how the real benefits of mobility can be protected and the costs properly allocated and contained. The chapters examine the sustainability of the world’s urban transport systems, bringing a variety of perspectives from different nations and from different fields: engineering, sociology, critical geography, environmental economics, eco-politics, urban planning and transport planning.