The Long-Term Position of Public Transport in Medium Sized Cities
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Date
1999
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AESOP
Abstract
Since the Second World War the use of public transport in the Netherlands has fallen from a major transportation mode to a somewhat quieter role. The main reason for this downward slope has been the widespread introduction of the car in the fifties, followed by the process of suburbanisation in the sixties. Since then, the government has been trying to influence the flow of people by building new towns around the major cities at a distance of about twenty kilometres. When this turned out to drain the main cities of their resources and to worsen the accessibility problems the focus changed to the four major cities again. The policy of "the compact city" was adopted and new housing sites were only built in or in the immediate vicinity of the main cities. Despite results on the sustainability of the cities themselves, this policy did not have any influence on the transportation problems, simply because the jobs in the cities are taken by the commuters from the suburban towns around the cities. Looking at the increasing congestion in this area, one could say there is some potential for the public transport. It is sad, but true that the public transport did not benefit from the enormous rise in mobility since the sixties. Despite large investments in public transport infrastructure in recent years, the portion of public transport in the modal split has rather diminished than grown. Part of this can be explained by the fact that the public transport network does not match the current transport patterns of the people in the region. The public transport is not able to match the nowadays 'cris-cross-relations in the region (le Clercq, 1996; Raad voor Verkeer en Waterstaat, 1996). Another problem is the fact that the 'quality' of the public transport compared to that of the car is low. For public transport it is almost impossible to compete with the characteristics of the car.
Description
Book of abstracts : AESOP PhD workshop 1999, Finse, Depertment of Geography Univeristy of Bergen, Norway
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CC-BY