Environmental Challenges of Urban Transport: The Impacts of Motorization

This chapter raises two important reservations regarding “technological fixes” to urban transport challenges. The first is that cities typically suffer from not being able to predict environmental impacts accurately and quickly enough to avoid serious ramifications. The second lies in the need to recognize the strength of the global corporate marketing forces behind the focus on automotive technology, reinforced by other supporting technologies that lead to a path-dependency in urban traffic management, which keeps infrastructure focused on motor cars. The author of the chapter argues for a holistic perspective on the need to reduce the negative environmental and other impacts of the automobile. The justification of such action becomes transparent, only when a holistic perspective of the need to reduce the negative environmental and other impacts of the automobile is taken.