For several years, national authorities have signaled that all growth in transport demand in cities should be met by public transport, cycling and walking, and that there should be zero growth in car traffic volumes. Other objectives concern more urban development towards more attractive and livable cities.
What national documents have in common, is the emphasis of a coordinated land use and transport planning steering developments in directions contributing to make cities more climate-friendly and attractive for both residents and businesses. This will be achieved through interaction between several measures: a more concentrated land use development, a better public transport services, improved facilities for cycling and walking, and the use of restrictive measures against the private car.
The ideal is coordinated land use and transport development where strategies and tools are combined to achieve defined goals while avoiding negative consequences. Even if such goals have been expressed for several years, to follow them will require a significant change of current practice in many Norwegian cities.
Today's land use and transport development does not contribute to achieving these goals in many cities. This is due to various reasons, such as conflicts of interest, fragmented distribution of responsibility, competition between cities, etc. Important explanations are, among other factors, that relevant theoretical and empirical knowledge have shortcomings and are not readily available for practitioners, and that many planners do not have enough expertise in this field.
The Strategic Institute Initiative (SII) Urban development and urban transport for climate-friendly and attractive cities will respond to these issues by contributing to the development, dissemination and availability of knowledge regarding land use and transport system development that might contribute to more attractive and climate-friendly cities, how planning and decision-making can steer developments in such directions and which barriers they might face. Through this, the work of the SII will help strengthen the ability of responsible bodies to steer development in directions leading to goal achievement.
The work will be carried out in three work packages:
- Urban development for more climate-friendly and attractive cities
- Development of transport systems targeting the zero-growth objective
- Knowledge, analysis, planning and decision making, and barriers
Here you can read the full description of the SII (in Norwegian)
