Academic freedom: in justification of a universal ideal

This paper examines the justification for, and benefits of, academic freedom to academics, students, universities and the world at large. The paper surveys the development of the concept of academic freedom within Europe, more especially the impact of the reforms at the University of Berlin instigated by Wilhelm von Humboldt. Following from this, the paper examines the reasons why the various facets of academic freedom are important and why the principle should continue to be supported

Improving Pedestrian Accessibility and Quality of Life

In the UK walking has been in decline for many years, but is still an important mode accounting for around 25% of all trips in 2002 (DfT, 2003). Walking has perhaps been partly overlooked by those responsible for urban areas because of its very ubiquity and the fact that it is seen as a benign mode of transport. By its very nature walking is something which virtually everyone does and which is self evidently an important mode, but which causes few problems to others and is relatively inexpensive to cater for. These advantages can sometimes lead to walking being overlooked as the more “obvious” modes, in terms of impacts and person kilometres travelled, are catered for. Hillman and Whalley (1979), concluded that: “in both transport policy and practice, it [walking] has been overlooked or, at the least, has been inadequately recognised.” However, even after this report, there was little explicit National Government recognition that walking required consideration beyond simply providing facilities. The dominant consideration was safety, which led to a segregationist design philosophy. As the pedestrian was usually seen as the less important road user, this often meant that pedestrian convenience was sacrificed in order to remove the vulnerable pedestrian from the danger. The most extreme form of this approach was pedestrian subways and footbridges, but this philosophy also underlies the use of guardrails, pelican and other light controlled crossings. This paper contains firstly an overview of the main pedestrian problems and the factors that influence both the decision to walk and routes taken derived from literature search. The second part of the paper examines results from a series of studies looking at methods for valuing different aspects of the pedestrian environment

Aesthetic aspects of walking and cycling

For reasons of energy efficiency, health and the avoidance of climate change, it is desirable to encourage walking and cycling. However, step changes will be required to reverse years of decline in these transport modes. Recent thinking about how these might be achieved have concentrated on traditional transport policy measures, namely economic, engineering and information based instruments, while little emphasis has been put on the aesthetic dimension how the attractiveness of the built environment might be a significant factor in influencing walking and cycling. This paper argues that conceptualization of the aesthetic attractiveness of the street scene necessary to make walking and cycling pleasurable experiences is made difficult by the high degree of subjectivity involved and the likelihood that attitudes to the street scene may change in the future. In response to such problems, the paper suggests that there is a need for philosophical analysis of the issues involved. An introduction to such analysis is provided by a review of aesthetic thinking about landscapes and townscapes. This concentrates on research concerning the relevance of the forerunners of modern aesthetics, the eighteenth-century philosophers Hume and Kant, who attempted to tackle, on a generalized level, the types of problem raised here. As a result of this review, it is clear that there are no simple formulae or mechanisms by which aesthetic assessments can be applied off the shelf. Rather, the consideration of the historical philosophical arguments historically made about aesthetics can help provide a platform for generating insights on a case-by-case basis

Aesthetics and its relationship to social sustainability in urban transport systems

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Imagineering mobility: Constructing utopias for future urban transport

Over the past 50 years a growing body of work has sought to address the problem of planning for transportation in the long term future through scenario-building. Such thinking has generally been restricted to issues concerned with environmental sustainability and the ‘images’ of future transport so created are usually weak in terms of their social sustainability content, either treating social issues superficially, or ignoring them entirely, or even creating images that are socially undesirable. At the same time, there has generally been a marked decrease over the past 20 years in socially-oriented utopian thinking. As a direct result of these two factors, hardly any consideration has been given recently to imagining socially sustainable views of transport in a future utopia. The key underlying aim of this paper is to provide some background thinking about how this lack might be addressed. To do so, it examines concepts about utopia in terms of their form, content and function, and considers possible reasons for the recent decline in utopian thinking and their ‘replacement’ by a type of futures-thinking that is referred to as dystopian avoidance. It then examines transport characteristics of utopian thinking in urban planning in the 20th Century and considers various ‘antinomies of transport’ with respect to future utopias. Based upon the insights gained, the paper comments on two existing ‘practical’ sets of transport-related scenarios in terms of their utopian and dystopian characteristics. One particular result is that the utopian aspects of these scenario sets in terms of their social content are relatively weak, in line with the hypothesised recent general decline in (social) utopian thinking. Various conclusions are made which emphasise the usefulness of utopian thinking in transport planning, particularly in participatory approaches. It is suggested that three elements of the transport system should be separately ‘utopianised’: the mobility of people and goods; physical aspects that facilitate or inhibit such mobility; and the system of governance with respect to formulating and implementing transport policy

Car-free urban areas – a radical solution to the last mile problem or a step too far?

This paper suggests an alternative and, arguably, more comprehensive definition of the last mile as a personal travel concept. This characterization of the last mile is used as a catalyst for discussion of a radical urban car free vision to explore how such urban areas might operate in practice. A range of international examples of places where substantial change in urban transport has occurred are included to illustrate the potential for change, how this has been brought about and how close different areas are to achieving very different urban transport futures. The overwhelming argument is that such urban areas can work and in the context of the last mile concept provide a neat solution to many of the associated issues and problems. It is shown that a number of urban areas appear to be moving towards such car free futures and others might be expected to follow once the benefits become clearer

Incorporating equity considerations in transport infrastructure evaluation: current practice and a proposed methodology

Interest has re-emerged on the issue of how to incorporate equity considerations in the appraisal of transport projects and large road infrastructure projects in particular. This paper offers a way forward in addressing some of the theoretical and practical concerns that have presented difficulties to date in incorporating equity concerns in the appraisal of such projects. Initially an overview of current practice within transport regarding the appraisal of equity considerations in Europe is offered based on an extensive literature review. Acknowledging the value of a framework approach, research towards introducing a theoretical framework is then presented. The proposed framework is based on the well established MCA Analytic Hierarchy Process and is also contrasted with the use of a CBA based approach. The framework outlined here offers an additional support tool to decision makers who will be able to differentiate choices based on their views on specific equity principles and equity types. It also holds the potential to become a valuable tool for evaluators as a result of the option to assess predefined equity perspectives of decision makers against both the project objectives and the estimated project impacts. This framework may also be of further value to evaluators outside transport