Threats From Car Traffic To The Quality Of Urban Life

Key Features: *The book's unique feature is its behavioral science perspective on the threats to quality of urban life from car use and policy measures to reduce car use *It provides a consolidated reference in car ownership and use *Key topical area backed up by international policy e.g. The Kyoto Protocol *The book's unique feature is its behavioral science perspective on the threats to quality of urban life from car use and policy measures to reduce car use *It provides a consolidated reference in car ownership and use *Key topical area backed up by international policy e.g. The Kyoto Protocol.

Our behaviour in our own homes - our recycling habits, consumer choices and transport preferences - all have a huge impact on the environment locally and globally. Governments across the world are trying to formulate and implement policies to encourage and enforce more sustainable household actions. Yet so often these policies fail to have the desired effects because of a lack of understanding of the complex interplay of policy and individual behaviour. This book examines this interplay, looking at the role of values, attitudes and constraints in the links between policy and changing behaviour at the household level. The first part of the book explores the theoretical background looking at the politics of lifestyles and lifestyle change, policy legitimacy and barriers and facilitators for pro-environmental behaviour. The second part is made up of in-depth case studies from Sweden - one of the fore-running countries in this area - examining three main types of household behaviour: waste and recycling; consumption and labelling; and transportation choices. Within these case studies, the contributors examine what policy initiatives have and haven't worked and the role of values and constraints in those processes. This is the first inter-disciplinary, in-depth look at how environmental policy enters the private, domestic sphere. The theoretical insights and policy guidance the book offers will be vital in the drive to generate behaviour change at the household level and the move towards sustainable societies.

Cars are essential in modern Western societies. Some even say that our modern lifestyles would have been impossible without cars. The dependency of Western societies on our cars is a unique situation in history, but does not get much attention; car use is seen as just a normal situation. The population at large knows the risks, knows the disadvantages, experiences the advantages and keeps driving. Using data from Western Europe, this book examines three key themes: frequent car use, car dependence, and the future of passenger car mobility in societies. In conclusion, in modern Western risk societies, more attention needs to be paid to car dependence, its driving forces, its advantages, its problems and challenges for the future.

Traffic in Towns, also known as the Buchanan Report, is regarded as one of the most influential planning documents of the twentieth century. The report reflected mounting concern about the impact on Britain’s towns and cities of rapid growth in the ownership and use of motor vehicles. Its purpose was to evaluate policy options for reducing the threat of traffic congestion to urban circulation and quality of life. Two main conclusions were drawn from the report: firstly, the need for large-scale reconstruction to make Britain’s cities fit for the ‘motor age’, including split-level megastructures and urban motorways; and secondly, the simultaneous need to preserve parts of the city, especially residential areas as car-free zones or ‘environmental areas’. In Britain, successive governments drew back from implementing the full recommendations of the Study Group, despite initial cross-party support. The prohibitive cost of city-centre redevelopment and motorway construction meant a ‘comprehensive’ solution to the problem of urban traffic on Buchanan lines was never attempted. However, local authorities in a variety of British cities, such as Glasgow, Leicester and Leeds took up aspects of the Report. Internationally, too, the Report had a major impact in countries such as Sweden, Italy and Australia. In the longer term, the influence of the Report may be best judged by the incremental changes it set in train such as pedestrianization of city centres, traffic calming, and other measures linked to Buchanan’s concept of ‘environmental areas’. In focusing attention on the effects of mass motorization on the urban environment Traffic in Towns set the terms of debate for a generation, pre-figuring recent discussion about the car and urban sustainability.

. . . the book provides ample evidence of the various and often complex issues that arise in road pricing policies. New research is presented on topics mostly neglected in the past (such as the role of firms in rod pricing, or new insights from dynamic network models). Tilmann Rave, Journal of Regional Science Transport pricing is high on the political agenda throughout the world, but as the authors illustrate, governments seeking to implement this often face challenging questions and significant barriers. The associated policy and research questions cannot always be addressed adequately from a mono-disciplinary perspective. This book shows how a multi-disciplinary approach may lead to new types of analysis and insights, contributing to a better understanding of the intricacies of transport pricing and eventually to a potentially more effective and acceptable design of such policies. The study addresses important policy and research themes such as the possible motives for introducing road transport pricing and potential conflicts between these motives, behavioural responses to transport pricing for households and firms, the modelling of transport pricing, and the acceptability of pricing. Studying road transport pricing from a multi-disciplinary perspective, this book will be of great interest to transport policymakers and advisors, transport academics and consultants and students in transport studies.

This publication brings together an international group of researchers and presents work from different countries dealing with issues related to transport policy, attitudes and mode choice, car sharing and alternative modes of transport, and discusses the future of non-motorized modes of transport.

This volume analyses the relevance of daily travel in the quality of life of individuals. It provides a broad understanding of the links between life satisfaction, well-being and travel, the importance of commuting, and different evaluations and measures to assess the experience of commuting and quality of life. Chapters in this book relate travel and quality of life to the built environment, accessibility and exclusion, travel mode choice, travel satisfaction and emotions. It brings together distinguished researchers from a variety of academic backgrounds providing conceptualizations and applications, presented as case studies, for daily travel and well-being. Findings presented in this book are highly relevant for transport planners, transport marketers, public transport authorities, and environmental professionals in the pursuit of improving people’s life.

This volume brings together the world’s leading experts on urban and transport planning, environmental exposures, physical activity, health and health impact assessment to discuss challenges and solutions in cities. The book provides a conceptual framework and work program for actions and outlines future research needs. It presents the current evidence-base, the benefits of and numerous case studies on integrating health and the environment into urban development and transport planning. Within cities there is a considerable variation in the levels of environmental exposures such as ambient air pollution, noise, and temperature, green space availability and physical activity. Many of these exposures, and their adverse health impacts, are related to and are being exacerbated by urban and transport planning and policy. Emerging research suggests that urban and transport planning indicators such as road network, distance to major roads, traffic density, household density, industry, and natural and green space can explain a large proportion of the variability in environmental exposures and therefore represent important and highly modifiable factors. The urban environment is a complex interlinked system. Decision-makers need not only better data on the complexity of factors in environmental and developmental processes affecting human health, but also an enhanced understanding of the linkages between these factors and health effects to determine at which level to target their actions most effectively. In recent years, there also has been a shift from trying to change at the national level to more comprehensive and ambitious actions being developed and implemented at the regional and local levels. Cities have come to the forefront of providing solutions for environmental issues such as climate change, which has co-benefits for health, but yet need better knowledge for wider health-centric action. This book provides the latest and most up-to-date information and studies for academics and practitioners alike.