PLANNING FOR A SUSTAINABLE EUROPE? - TU Berlin

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In the case of the TINA exercise, the Realrationalität of the process incorporated
the foundational premise and core belief of growth-led (ecological) modernization into its
analysis in such a way that its conclusions appear as “objective” assessments and “truths”
rather than the rationality-as-rationalization exercise that it was. Almost by definition,
the TINA process puts a disproportionate emphasis on international links, i.e.
international travel. The problem here is that, in fact, especially with regard to passenger
traffic volumes, long distance international travel still only accounts for a tiny fraction of
the total traffic volumes in Central Europe. The vast majority of passenger transport
needs are either within or between major urban centers. The situation is similar for goods
transport. While recent Eurostat figures show that road freight transport is in fact more
“international” in CEE than in the EU, this is mainly due to the smaller size of CEE
countries. (A truck traveling the 600 km from Munich to Berlin is still considered
“national travel,” whereas a truck traveling the 340 km from Prague to Berlin is
considered “international travel.”) Figure 7.12 shows that the share of international
traffic is about twice as large in CEE countries as in the EU. A greater emphasis on
upgrading east-west transport links is thus indeed justified. Nevertheless, over half of all
traffic in CEE countries is national in scope, and, as figure 7.13 shows almost 80% of this
traffic is over distances of less than 50km. The comparative figure for EU countries is
60%. Also, 17% of all national EU traffic travels very long distances (over 150km),
whereas this is only the case for 8% of national CEE traffic. This means that from the
perspective of the respective countries, investment in regional level transport
infrastructure should have at least an equally high priority as international infrastructure.