Do citizens support the transformation of urban transport? Evidence for the acceptability of parking management, car lane conversion and road closures from a German case study

Abstract

Facing the challenges of motorised traffic, many cities around the globe started implementing measures to transform their urban transport systems. One of the major challenges for the success of adequate policies is not only their effectiveness but also whether they are accepted by city residents. With a quantitative case study in four neighbourhoods in Frankfurt am Main (N = 821), this article investigates the acceptability of three measures: (i) parking management, (ii) the conversion of car lanes into cycle lanes and (iii) the closure of an inner city arterial road to car traffic. The results show a surprisingly high acceptability for all measures if the benefits for local residents are tangible. Thus, successful policy packages may combine push measures with either pull measures, as suggested frequently in the literature, or with improvements for other land uses (e.g. re-using former car-parking spaces for non-transport purposes, such as greenery or seating areas). Furthermore, the perceived effectiveness, daily travel practices and intentions to reduce car use, the built environment and, to a lesser degree, socio-demographics explain differences in acceptability by population group.