Alternative discourse and narratives for institutional change in transport planning
Date
2019
Authors
Editors
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Publisher
AESOP
Abstract
Mega transport infrastructure is increasingly resisted by local communities throughout the world. Community resistance becomes successful if alternative discourses and narratives have been developed and linked with a wide range of like-minded actors and are advanced during the transport planning process. This paper explores discourses argued and presented by various stakeholders to advance and resist the Basin Reserve Bridge (BRB) proposal in Wellington, New Zealand as a part of the Roads of National Significance (RoNS). This paper critically reviews planning and policy documents, media reports and submissions to uncover distinctive arguments and narratives within five main storylines: economic storylines, safety storylines, environmental storylines, traffic and access storylines, and heritage storylines. The influence of discourses is discussed at political, institutional and social levels to provide a greater understanding of community resistance. This paper concludes that alternative discourse has the potential to break a path dependency in transport planning and create a foundation for a new policy path.
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Keywords
Alternative discourse, transport planning, Basin Reserve Bridge, Wellington