The browser you are using is not supported by this website. All versions of Internet Explorer are no longer supported, either by us or Microsoft (read more here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/windows/end-of-ie-support).

Please use a modern browser to fully experience our website, such as the newest versions of Edge, Chrome, Firefox or Safari etc.

Default user image.

Till Koglin

Senior lecturer

Default user image.

Pedestrian planning and the challenges of instrumental rationality in transport planning: emerging strategies in three Swedish municipalities

Author

  • DAVID LINDELÖW
  • Till Koglin
  • Åse Svensson

Summary, in English

Despite having been subject to a strong and many-sided critique, instrumental rationality persists as paramount in transport planning practice and research. This paper argues that it is crucial to acknowledge the prescriptive and normative facet of instrumental rationality in order to understand its impact on transport planning. The aim is to explore to what extent pedestrian planning – within a specific geographical context – has subscribed to the methods employed within the limits of instrumental rationality. The study draws on data from interviews with urban and transport planners in three municipalities in the southern part of Sweden (Malmö, Lund, and Helsingborg) together with those municipalities’ urban and transport planning strategies. The material is analysed through three aspects related to (1) who the road user is in the realm of instrumental rationality, (2) what kind of knowledge is of interest within instrumental rationality and (3) how instrumental rationality takes physical form. The analysed material displays walking as increasingly being included in planning exercises and general design guidelines. However, these efforts do not form a consistent and thought-out strategy proceeding from instrumental rationality. Walking remains seemingly excluded from many methods defining this concept. Furthermore, the means are not described as explicitly related to certain ends, or vice versa.

Department/s

  • Transport and Roads

Publishing year

2016-07

Language

English

Pages

405-420

Publication/Series

Planning Theory & Practice

Volume

17

Issue

3

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Routledge

Topic

  • Human Geography

Keywords

  • Pedestrians
  • Transport planning
  • Planning documents
  • Instrumental rationality

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 1470-000X