The Winding Road to Sustainable Mobility : Institutional Conditions for Planning for Sustainable Mobility in the Stockholm Region

Sustainable mobility has been identified as one of the main issues for the Stockholm region in its work to achieve more sustainable urban development. Previous research shows that planning for sustainable mobility is complex, since it involves many actors and a wide range of planning sectors. Moreover, planning practice is often associated with political, organisational and institutional challenges that together cause inertia. As a result, the concrete outcomes of planning frequently reinforce existing car-orientated transport structures, counteracting the ambition of sustainable mobility. This licentiate thesis examines the institutional conditions for more coherent and integrated planning for sustainable mobility in the Stockholm region. This was done by applying institutional capacity as an analytical framework for mapping the collective capacity among planning actors to work in accordance with the principles of sustainable mobility. The analysis shows that participating planning actors share a similar view on the importance of sustainable mobility, but inertias relating to concrete planning practice are visible. For example, it appears as though neither the planning actors nor actual planning projects are sufficiently well organised to enable cooperation between actors or integration of planning sectors or perspectives. Moreover, the methods and practices applied in planning have not been adequately modified to meet the new planning objectives. A lack of facilitating structures in terms of time and economic resources, and of formal planning guidelines, seem to hinder the shift in perspectives and practices required to realise the vision of sustainable mobility. Thus, although there has been a clear change in terms of objectives at the strategic level, the institutional conditions for planning have not evolved to the same extent. Consequently, planning for sustainable mobility is still not the simple, the common or the natural practice in the Stockholm region.QC 20161026Metoder och arbetssätt i stadsplanering för transportsnål sta