Browsing by Subject "Car dependency"

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
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    Car dependency beyond land use: Can a standardized built environment indicator predict car use?
    (Journal of Transport and Land Use, 2022) Van Eenoo, Eva; Fransen, Koos; Boussauw, Kobe
    In June 2019, the government of the Flemish Region (Belgium) launched the “mobility score,” a standardized built environment indicator that informs citizens in Flanders about the walking or cycling accessibility from their dwelling to a range of basic amenities and public transport stops. The development of the mobility score was developed to be a tool to raise awareness of the environmental impact of travel. Against this backdrop, this paper assesses the extent to which the mobility score can predict car use and aims to contribute to the line of research that studies travel patterns in relation to accessibility, spatial context, and travel mode choice. Based on the data from the Flemish Travel Behavior Survey, we analyze the effect of the interaction between the built environment, frequency of car use and vehicle kilometers traveled. Our findings illustrate that frequent and intensive car use is not an exclusive feature of suburban and rural residents in Flanders, or of those who travel long distances. The outcomes show that the mobility score can predict the frequency of car travel but only in the inner city. As for other areas, travel behavior shows little variance among respondents. The presence of a company car in a household is a much stronger predictor of vehicle kilometers traveled than any other variable, including the built environment. Travel behavior turns toward car use once a household acquires a car, almost regardless of the type of neighborhoods where respondents live. In Flanders, policy has so far been directed more toward curbing car use than discouraging car ownership. Our findings suggest that it could be more effective to aim for the latter, as this prevents the development of a cycle of car-oriented behavior in the first place.
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    The inevitability of automobility: How private car use is perpetuated in a greenfield housing estate
    (Journal of Transport and Land Use, 2022) Kent, Jennifer L.
    Ongoing advances in technologies of connectivity have strengthened our capacity to envision urban environments less dominated by private car use. Yet many cities remain attached to, and defined by, the automobile. In challenging this status quo, we must understand the complex and varied ways private car use is reinforced in different urban environments. This paper provides such an understanding in the context of a low-density, and currently car-dependent, city. It presents a detailed analysis of the system of automobility to demonstrate the way private-car use is unintentionally perpetuated through contemporary practices of planning, developing and inhabiting cities. A newly constructed suburb in Sydney, Australia, provides the case for analysis. The suburb—Oran Park—is a master-planned estate intentionally designed to encourage alternative transport modes that is rendered ostensibly car-dependent as a result of a confluence of historical and contemporary structural and practical influences. The paper combines a detailed examination of the planning, transport and land-use context of the suburb with survey data from 300 of its residents. The paper’s novel contribution is to analyze these data sources using a social practice approach. The analysis lays bare the inevitability of automobility’s reproduction in the estate—describing the litany of elements that are both infrastructural and cultural and that, in orchestration, reproduce private car use. These elements are deconstructed to inform future challenges to the hegemony of the private car.
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    Planning for cycling in local government: Insights from national surveys in Australia and New Zealand
    (Journal of Transport and Land Use, 2022) Babb, Courtney; McLeod, Sam; Noone, Conor
    Despite a broad consensus that cycling can address a range of transportation issues, many countries have struggled to institute measures to increase cycling participation. Even for cities that have achieved marked progress, there remains a gap in making cycling a truly normative mode of transportation. The practical problem of translating research and converting policy vision into broad-based cycling participation has become an increasingly central focus of international cycling scholarship. To examine the challenges of practically planning for cycling, we focus on the role of local government and report on a survey of all urban and major regional local governments in Australia and New Zealand. By analyzing results across the two countries, we diagnose challenges faced by practitioners in implementing measures to support cycling. Key findings suggest there is support among local government officers and stakeholders for cycling to play an increased role in daily transportation, yet this support is much more mixed at the implementation stage of cycling plans, policies, and infrastructure projects. These findings indicate a pressing need to better equip local government practitioners with tools and knowledge to overcome barriers to providing for cycling, particularly in increasingly politicized and complex contexts.