PLANNING FOR A SUSTAINABLE EUROPE? - TU Berlin

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care.” 36
Schaeffer and Sclar’s (1980:111ff) classic account Access for All strove to
illustrate how reliance on automobile transport has severely restricted the mobility of
youth and the elderly. More recently, environmental justice-oriented scholars such as
Bullard and Johnson (1997:1) have reminded us that “transportation development policies
did not emerge in a race- and class-neutral society.” In the same volume, Holmes
(1997:22) shows how “poor people and people of color … pay the highest social,
economic and environmental costs and receive the fewest benefits from an automobiledominated
transportation system.”
In addition to this, a large number of studies have pointed to gender-imbalances in
transport, showing how women have less access to cars, and are thus also more likely to
be captive transit riders, i.e. passenger with no other modal choice. 37 Meanwhile,
women’s domestic care-taking responsibilities typically require more localized, off-peak
trip-making – a need very poorly met in most communities (for an overview of the
gender and transport problematique see Grieco, Pickup et al. 1989; Hamilton, Jenkins et
al. 1991; Levy 1992; Rosenbloom 1993; Turner and Fouracre 1995; Wachs 1998;
Hamilton 2000; Peters 2000).
In pointing out these differences, political economy-oriented scholars are mainly
interested in the distributional effects of transport infrastructure investments. The typical
research questions they ask point to the unequal benefits accruing to various social
groups or, if more spatially-oriented, to different regions. A standard criticism by
environmental NGOs is that international development institutions like the World Bank
36 Eric Mann (1997) further illustrates how Los Angeles’ heavily subsidized new rail system is largely
benefiting white suburban commuters, while the proposed fare hikes and service cuts for the much more
extensive inner-city bus systems were to disproportionately affect poor minority households.
37 Interestingly, according to Black (1995:302), the now widely used distinction between “choice” and
“captive” riders was first made by Louis Keefer in a Pittsburgh Area Transportation study around 1960.