PLANNING FOR A SUSTAINABLE EUROPE? - TU Berlin

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qualifying as “unbiased” is that a person “be sensitive and responsive to contradictory
evidence” (p.56). In my case, my entire research design, and its theory-building part in
particular, should in fact be looked at as a sensitive response - if not so much to the
contradictions then definitely to the limits that (too strongly) environmentally biased
views on European Union transport infrastructure decision-making pose for scholarly
inquiry. (This is of course also true for fields other than transportation). In the end, I am
convinced that my extensive prior knowledge of the subject area enriched rather than
limited my case study accounts, and that it even helped me to overcome the frustrations
of working in a field where contradictory evidence and biased research is particularly
extensive. Few areas of inquiry seem to be as inconclusive and contradictory in their
evidence as that of “sustainable” transport infrastructure investment.
1.7 Initial Considerations: “Rhetoric versus Reality” or “Realrationalität”?
The starting point of this study was the realization, made during my NGO work,
that there seemed to be a stark contrast between the sustainability objectives expressed in
key EU documents (e.g. the EC and EU Treaties, the EU Common Transport Policy, the
EU Sustainable Development Strategy, the EU Spatial Development Perspective etc.) and
actual EU-led transport-sector infrastructure investments, both in the member states
themselves and in the central European EU-accession countries. Take the issue of modal
preferences, for example. Even according to very mainstream sources, sustainable
transport development implies an increase of investments in the environmentally friendly
modes of rail, public transit, and combined transport and a move away from car and truck
dominance (ECMT and OECD 1990; ECMT 1995b; World Bank 1996). As will be