Prelims

Half Title Page

THREATS FROM CAR TRAFFIC TO THE QUALITY OF URBAN LIFE: PROBLEMS, CAUSES, AND SOLUTIONS

Title Page

THREATS FROM CAR TRAFFIC TO THE QUALITY OF URBAN LIFE: PROBLEMS, CAUSES, AND SOLUTIONS

Edited by

TOMMY GÄRLING

Göteborg University, Sweden

and

LINDA STEG

University of Groningen, The Netherlands

United Kingdom — North America — Japan

India — Malaysia — China

Copyright Page

Emerald Group Publishing Limited

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Copyright © 2007 Emerald Group Publishing Limited

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without either the prior written permission of the publisher or a licence permitting restricted copying issued in the UK by The Copyright Licensing Agency and in the USA by The Copyright Clearance Center. No responsibility is accepted for the accuracy of information contained in the text, illustrations or advertisements. The opinions expressed in these chapters are not necessarily those of the Editor or the publisher.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-0-08-048144-9

Preface

When thinking about current growth trends in motorized traffic and in particular private car use, there are many reasons to be worried about the future, even the near future. The ever-increasing documentation of negative effects on the environment, most importantly the transport sector’s adverse effects on global climate change, is one reason for serious concern. Not enough seems to be done. Some have argued that the political system is nonlinear – when the situation becomes really severe, politicians will react forcefully. This may or may not be an over-optimistic view.

There must be reasons why the public does not react strongly. The private car is instrumental for many important and desirable activities that people have time to engage in. And they gain even more time from using the car, at least as long as it remains a fast mode of daily travel. However, we know that this is no longer always the case. That people continue to use the car may therefore appear strange. Apparently, other factors account for this: freedom of choice, resistance to change a habit, affective attachment to the car, and the pleasure to drive. A diluted responsibility for undertaking required changes is an additional important factor.

In particular, in urban areas the negative effects of private car use are felt. Noise pollution, air pollution, pedestrian traffic accidents, infringement on land use resulting in the destruction of historic, cultural, and restorative qualities are among the most severe negative threats to the quality of urban life. A primary cause is the immense growth in urban populations, car ownership, and car use.

How can urban-life quality be restored? In any solution private car use must most likely be restrained, although not banished. Is increasing the price a solution? Regulation? Information and education?

We were lucky to manage to recruit scholars as authors of the chapters in this book, who are experts on various aspects of (i) what the threats are from car traffic, (ii) which the determinants of car use are, and (iii) what possible policy measures for curtailing car use can be implemented. This guaranteed a broad coverage of both positive and negative aspects of private car use in urban areas. We hope readers coming from one of the many disciplines represented by the authors of chapters in this book will appreciate this broad coverage. At the same time, we are particularly pleased that all chapters take a behavioural perspective on the problems as well as their solutions. This is needed as a contrast to other perspectives that tend to dominate. After all, it is ordinary people who are both drivers benefiting from the car (excluding the benefits to the car producers) and are exposed to the negative effects. We hope that this message will get through to policy makers in the transport sector.

We would like to thank all authors for their work and the following persons who were willing to thoroughly review chapter drafts and did so in a timely manner: Staffan Hygge, Lena Nilsson, Dan Stromberg, Bert Van Wee, Erik Verhoef, Berti! Vilhelmson, and Emile Quinet.

Tommy Gärling

Linda Steg

October, 2006

Contributors

Gary L. Allen

Department of Psychology, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, USA

Kay W. Axhausen

Institute of Transport Planning, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zürich, Switzerland

Anke Blöbaum

Workgroup of Cognition and Environmental Psychology, Ruhr-University Bochum, Bochum, Germany

Karel Brookhuis

Department of Psychology, Faculty of Behavioural and Social Sciences, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands; Delft University of Technology, Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management

Dick de Waard

Department of Psychology, Faculty of Behavioural and Social Sciences, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands; Delft University of Technology, Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management

Philippe Domergue

Conseil Supérieur du Service Public Ferroviaire ( CSSPF), Paris, France

Satoshi Fujii

Department of Civil Engineering, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tokyo, Japan

Tommy Gärling

Department of Psychology, Göteborg University, Göteborg, Sweden

Birgitta Gatersleben

Department of Psychology, University of Surrey, Guildford, UK

Robert Gifford

Department of Psychology, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada

Reginald G. Colledge

Department of Geography, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, USA

Phil Goodwin

Centre for Transport and Society, University of the West of England, Bristol, UK

Terry Hartig

Institute for Housing and Urban Research, Uppsala University, Gävle, Sweden

Cecilia Jakobsson

Department of Psychology, Göteborg University, Göteborg, Sweden

Jeff Kenworthy

Institute for Sustainability and Technology Policy, Murdoch University, Murdoch, WA, Australia

Peter Loukopoulos

Institute for Human-Environment Systems, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, Zürich, Switzerland

Ellen Matthies

Workgroup of Cognition and Environmental Psychology, Ruhr-University Bochum, Bochum, Germany

Henk M.E. Miedema

Department of Environment and Health, Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research (TNO), Delft, The Netherlands

Peter Newman

Institute for Sustainability and Technology Policy, Murdoch University, Murdoch, WA, Australia

Emile Quinet

Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées, Paris, France

Geertje Schuitema

Department of Psychology, Faculty of Behavioural and Social Sciences, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands

Linda Steg

Department of Psychology, Faculty of Behavioural and Social Sciences, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands

Stephen Stradling

Transport Research Institute, Napier University, Edinburgh, UK

John Thøgersen

Department of Marketing and Statistics, Aarhus School of Business, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark

Barry Ubbels

NEA Transport Research and Training (member of Panteia), Rijswijk, The Netherlands

Bert Van Wee

Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands

Erik Verhoef

Department of Spatial Economics, Free University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Bertil Vilhelmson

Department of Human and Economic Geography, School of Economics and Law, Göteborg University, Göteborg, Sweden

Charles Vlek

Department of Psychology, Faculty of Behavioural and Social Sciences, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands