Discursive Barriers to Sustainable Transport in New Zealand Cities

Abstract

The provision of sustainable transport remains a high priority in the New Zealand cities of Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch. However, the lack of real progress in developing sustainable transport systems in these cities demands a search for new insights. This article investigates barriers to sustainable urban transport by applying the concept of discursive path dependence to the way in which policymakers conceive and address problems in an institutional context. The discursive barriers are investigated through the identification of ‘storylines’ from Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch transport and planning documents dating from the mid-1950s until late 2012. Economic, mobility, safety, consumer, funding and environment storylines show a developmental bias towards roads as compared to sustainable transport. The influence of storylines is discussed at political, institutional and social levels to provide greater understanding of the shaping of policy discourses. This article concludes that discourse constructed in the past, but continuously reiterated, has created a path dependency which is a barrier to sustainable transport in all three cities. The application of path dependence shows that once a road-based policy path has been taken, discourse strengthens that path and helps actors to consistently ignore the need for sustainable transport and obstruct change in policy implementation.

在奥克兰、威灵顿、基督城等新西兰城市，提供可持续的交通一直是重中之重。然而，开发可持续的交通系统一直没有实际进展，因而需要换个眼光。本文从话语路径依赖的角度，观察政策制定者在体制内认识和解决问题的方法，以求探寻阻碍可持续城市交通的因素。我们翻检了1950 年代中期直到 2012 年下半年这三座城市的交通和规划文件，从中理出“脉络”。经济、流动性、安全、消费者、融资和环境脉络显示，开发优先考虑的是道路，而不是可持续交通。我们在政治、体制和社会层面讨论这些脉络，以便更好地理解政策话语的形成。本文最后指出，过去建构但不断重提的话语，已经形成一种路径依赖，阻碍了这三座城市的可持续交通。路径依赖的发生，说明一旦选取了一种基于道路的政策路径，话语就会强化这一路径，并使得行为者持续忽视可持续交通的需求，阻碍政策实施的变革。

Keywords::

• Sustainable transport
• path dependence
• discourse
• Auckland
• Wellington
• Christchurch

Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge the contributions of Lee Matthews as a research assistant in the earlier part of this project. The authors also acknowledge very constructive and thorough comments of two anonymous referees which helped to improve the shape of this article and the depth of the analysis.

Additional information

Funding

Part of this research was supported by the Massey University Research Fund (MURF) and the Royal Society of New Zealand Marsden Fast-Start Project [No. MAU1208].