The United Nations have developed Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) to guide countries’ development in the next decades. In this paper, we first propose a set of measurable indicators that define the degree of achievement of SDG. Secondly, we use a microscopic integrated land use and transportation model to define future scenarios and measure SDG in the future with radical policies. The model is implemented in Munich and Kagawa. The results are not uniform across policies: while the core cities scenario limits urban sprawl and consumption of greenfield land, traffic conditions and GHG emissions worsened. Furthermore, the scenarios also show the relevance of testing policies in different study areas: the core city scenario and the draconic resettlement scenario showed some impact on vehicle-kilometers traveled in Munich, while the impact in the Kagawa region was almost negligible. In general, only strong (and perhaps implausible) relocation policies result in overall significant changes in the SDG indicators.

Lately, there has been a tendency in academia to call for more interdisciplinary research on sustainable mobility. However, there is a lack of empirical research on practiced interdisciplinarity. This paper seeks to address this by exploring the practices of an intended interdisciplinary doctoral research group. Specifically, it presents the study of a collaborative autoethnography using individual vignettes and qualitative data analysis. The results classify the identified interdisciplinary practices into three main categories: Interactions, productive processes, and negotiation processes, where interactions serve as a carrier for negotiation and productive processes. This also uncovers advantages and challenges associated with these interactions. Furthermore, the analysis reveals intersubjectivity as an important component of the infrastructure of interdisciplinarity involved in both processes. Finally, we call for a reevaluation of the hierarchical thinking about the different levels of interdisciplinarity, going from disciplinary to multidisciplinary to interdisciplinary to transdisciplinary research. We conclude that for interdisciplinarity to happen in practice, it requires having a combination of various disciplines, ontologies, and a common “wicked” problem to solve. We also find that developing an interdisciplinary research environment requires researchers to embark on a shared journey of reaching a higher level of intersubjectivity through continuous interactions and discussions, while also negotiating conflicts.

Protected bicycle lanes are held up as the end-all of bicycle infrastructure, with unprotected bicycle lanes being widely considered unsafe and inferior. This perspective is supported by existing research showing people’s preference for protected versus unprotected bicycle lanes. Scant research, however, has explored this topic area using an observational research method. If an observational method is used, the research is typically count-based and focused on a predetermined sets of variables identified before the observation period and this hinders the research from advancing findings beyond frequencies and the already known variables. Without a clearer understanding of how people are using and interacting on streets with either type of bicycle lane, it is difficult, if not impossible, to adequately assess whether, and which, facility type best accommodates safe bicycle mobility. This paper introduces a new qualitative-quantitative method for conducting observational research which takes a grounded theory approach to gain new insights into how people behave and interact while using street segments, intersections, and other public places. This method follows a four-step process which involves qualitatively identifying interactions recorded on video, using deductive and inductive logic to document independent variables associated with interactions, and concludes in a quantitative analysis of the qualitatively produced data. As a display of the applications of this method, a case study is presented here which uses the new method to investigate the interactions of bicyclists with other road users on a street segment with an unprotected bicycle lane in Munich, Germany.

The competition for urban space and the debate about where people can and should ride their bicycles began not long after this new form of mobility was introduced to the public. For two centuries, we have debated and eventually investigated whether bike lanes belong on the sidewalk or if they should be on the street alongside the vehicular roadway. Existing research has provided evidence of preferences for bike lane alignment based on perceived safety or comfort as well as objective measures of comparative safety based on available crash and hospital data. Much of the existing research has been driven by deductive assumptions or is limited by the lack of data describing near-miss events and the subtle everyday interactions cyclists experience when using different types of cycle facilities. To help us understand better what role everyday interactions play in the relative functionality of sidewalk and on-street bike lanes, an observational study was conducted using a new qualitative–quantitative grounded theory-driven method for identifying and interpreting the outcome of cyclists’ interactions. Using data gathered from 2,583 interactions observed at four case study street segments in Munich, Germany, four outcomes were identified: no reaction; adjusting or yielding; lane exiting; or multiple reactions. Based on inferential analyses of these outcomes, this paper presents an assessment of the safety, directness, and access afforded or hindered by the spatial conditions of observed interactions. The results of this assessment revealed a trade-off between frequent, but minor interactions in sidewalk bike lanes and infrequent, but less safe interactions in on-street bike lanes.

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