Kompakt, mobil, urban: Stadtentwicklungskonzepte zur Verkehrsvermeidung im internationalen Vergleich

Human settlement and travel patterns are closely interrelated. Given that both have major implications for natural resources (land, soil, energy) and substantial environmental impacts (emissions, noise, threat of accidents, barriers in urban environments), they are factors of major significance for the sustainability of towns and regions. The continuing expansion of human settlements is attributable not only to growing space demands arising from almost all forms of urban land use. The use of private motor vehicles in particular consumes immense areas of land and fuels urban sprawl. Increasingly disperse settlement patterns, or the suburbanization of the environs of cities, further expand travel demand and dependence on private cars. The result is a self-perpetuating, spiralling growth of settlements and traffic volumes. In the new Laender, this process is concentrated in an unusually short time frame, with all the attendant repercussions such as loss of open landscapes, higher energy consumption and continuing emissions. It is clear, if only for the reasons stated above, that the problem cannot be solved merely by improving traffic management and by switching to greener modes of transport alone, but that the traffic volume needs to be reduced by appropriate regional planning. The universally accepted formula for a traffic policy which is environmentally sound and relieves urban stress is therefore: avoid traffic, shift traffic flows, reduce the impacts of traffic on the environment. The choice of sequence is deliberate and intended to express an order of priorities. However, traffic avoidance in practice is still in its infancy. (orig.)Also published as report UBA-FB--99-028SIGLEAvailable from TIB Hannover: RN 8908(99-028) / FIZ - Fachinformationszzentrum Karlsruhe / TIB - Technische InformationsbibliothekUmweltbundesamt, Berlin (Germany); Umweltbundesamt, Berlin (Germany)DEGerman