Driving as essential, cycling as conditional: how automobility is politically sustained in discourses of everyday mobility

Abstract

Car-based automobility remains dominant across Europe despite the high energy requirements such a system embeds. This system is becoming increasingly problematised. As part of an alternative vision for everyday mobility, an aspiration for vélomobility appears to be growing. In light of the persistent subordinate status of cycling across much of Europe relative to driving, attempts to lay the foundations for everyday cycling are often pursued through the implementation of redistributive cycleways and broader public space measures that prioritise active travel. These important attempts to change public space can be blocked through public opposition, which can feature as part of broader social practices that may politically sustain automobility as a dominant system. In this study, we explore how automobility is politically sustained in discourses of opposition to a major active travel scheme proposal in the context of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, Ireland. We uncover how a normatively car-centric discourse of everyday mobility constructs driving as the essential mobility practice for the functional tasks of everyday life, while cycling is relegated to recreational and conditional mobility, and briefly consider how an alternative discourse of everyday mobility that decentres the car may be advanced.