Greening Transport—Explaining Urban Transport Policy Change

Abstract

Transport policy has proven highly resistant to change despite growing environmental problems. However, in the Swedish city of Örebro, objectives and policy measures in support of ecological sustainability have successfully been introduced in urban transport policies adopted by the local government. This article explains how this ‘greening’ became possible. Three variables of change proved highly important to understand policy change in this case: (i) new policy ideas of sustainable transport, (ii) reorganization of the local administration and (iii) the pressure of green policy entrepreneurs. A common denominator behind all these changes was the reformation of urban transport into a political issue through discursive changes and an active involvement by elected politicians, that is, politicization. The continuing importance of politics in contemporary policy processes as complex as transport is an important lesson from this case, that is, politics still matters.

Keywords:

• Sustainable transport
• policy change
• governance
• environmental governing
• urban planning
• politicization

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank all the interviewees who generously offered their time and provided vital information to the study. I also wish to thank Jan Olsson, Ingemar Elander, Rolf Lidskog, Nicholas Low and Anna-Lisa Fransson as well as two anonymous referees and the Editors for insightful and very helpful comments on earlier versions of this article.

Notes

At the beginning of 2008, the Unit consisted of five people and had an annual budget of 2.2 million SEK (Örebro Community Planning Committee, 2008).