PLANNING FOR A SUSTAINABLE EUROPE? - TU Berlin

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This view is also partially shared by Prof. Wojciech Suchorzewski, Poland’s
leading international transport policy expert. Invited to deliver the keynote presentation
at the ECMT’s 2001 Transport Policy Forum, he presented the following assessment
which confirms and re-summarizes the key conclusions from this ISPA case study
chapter (European Conference of Ministers of Transport (ECMT) 2001:13):
In several cases this focus [on Pan-European transport corridors] is well justified by
the intensity of both international and national traffic/transport. However, there are
areas of networks not belonging to trans-European corridors where the volumes of
regional/national traffic may be much higher than in these corridors. … Allocation of
large amount [sic] of money (through EIB, PHARE/ISPA etc) to projects on Pan-
European corridors may, to some extent, reduce investments into other national or
regional roads and railways, in spite of the fact that their importance for the whole
network might be comparable or even higher than links belonging to international
corridors. Deterioration of local/suburban railway systems serving large cities and
agglomerations is among the least desirable results. And the backlog in road
maintenance and rehabilitation of secondary networks may be growing.
In sum, we can hardly answer the question of how “sustainable” EU transport
infrastructure investments in Central Eastern Europe are without first considering the
spatial scale at which we are making our argument. The spatial dimension cross-cuts our
categorization of sustainable transport discourses, particularly with regard to
modernization-oriented arguments. Taking the example of the Budapest ring road, the
following chapter will therefore develop a typology of investment rationales that more
explicitly distinguishes the different spatial scales at which sustainability arguments are
being made. By way of transition, it is useful to re-consider the categorizations of
sustainable transport discourses presented in Chapter 3 and 4. Here, the following
remarks can be offered with regard to the issues discussed in this Chapter:
“Renunciation”-type, eco-centric arguments are generally directed against all large-scale