PLANNING FOR A SUSTAINABLE EUROPE? - TU Berlin

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perhaps should not, be united into a common sustainability definition. Baeten’s
(2000:70) key insight is worth quoting at length here:
The conflicting character of transport planning is remarkably absent in the sustainable
transport discourse. The harmonious and conflict-avoiding vocabulary of the
sustainability agenda is unable to cope with material processes that shape and
transform infrastructure networks. Yet, sustainable development and sustainable
transport are policy concepts which are currently widely accepted at international,
national and local policy level. It has generated a new optimism among transport
planners, since it seems to provide them with a fresh theoretical platform from which
to launch new pragmatic planning measures, backed up be a brad, almost globally
constructed consensus about the necessity of its implementation. At the same time,
however, it is not difficult to observe the remarkable discrepancy between, on one
hand, the legitimacy of sustainable transport concepts, and, on the other hand, the poor
theoretical elaboration of these concepts.
Whitelegg (1993:34) presents a very similar assessment. In particular, he points
to the discrepancy between supposedly ‘sustainable’ EU policy initiatives and actual
investment plans:
Sustainability, if it is to amount to more than rhetoric, must be associated with clear
goals and measures that have some potential to achieve these goals. This is not the
case with the European Commission (EC) pronouncements on sustainability [as
outlined in CEC 1992a]. The EC has invoked the rhetoric of sustainability at the same
time as advocating the construction of 12500km of new motorway standard roads
(costed at 130 billion ECUs) in Europe [CEC 1992b] and without any evaluation of
alternative strategies to solve transport problems. The publication of road plans in
advance of a major White Paper on transport policy [CEC 1992c] is further evidence
of a clear disregard for environmental issues and the transformation of sustainability
into an argument to support traditional policies.
We thus return to our core theme of rhetoric versus reality. More importantly, we
once again see opposing discursive frameworks at work. In turn, these discursive
frameworks often seem to be linked with material interests and decision-making claims
different stakeholders have with regard to particular types of transport investments. That
is: policy formulations typically appear as rationalizations and reflections of real-life