Local 'Barriers' to Environmentally Sustainable Transport Planning

Rapid changes are occurring in the rhetoric and practice of transport planning in the UK. Driven by ever increasing road congestion and growing awareness of the impact of road transport on the environment, a consensus is said to be emerging over the implementation of a new approach to UK transport planning centred on managing the demand for road travel rather than catering for it. This paper explores the depth and breadth of the penetration of this new consensus in relation to policy making in central government and in three local case-study areas. The paper charts the factors that have shifted transport policy direction and are contributing to and inhibiting the adoption of a new demand management approach. It concludes by stating that whilst definitive shifts in transport-planning rhetoric and practice have occurred in recent times, shifts toward demand management have been slow due in particular to local cultural and political difficulties. These persist in many localities and in similar policy areas and an awareness of these is useful in highlighting difficulties in the adoption of environmental sustainability agendas in other policy fields.