Evaluation of urban transport projects with respect to sustainable mobility

Abstract

In the middle and in the second half of the last century, the development of transport infrastructure in cities was approached in a purely functional way in planning practice. The functional approach was based on meeting the growing traffic demand, primarily individual road traffic, which resulted in huge investments in the city's road infrastructure. The short - term view of the future and the fascination of planners with individual road traffic relatively quickly proved to be a failure of planning theory and practice. Many urban areas have become unacceptable for the quality of life of residents due to harmful products of individual road traffic, such as noise, air pollution, traffic accidents and disrupting the landscape aesthetics of the urban area. Bad experiences with such an approach have resulted in a turnaround that took place at the end of the century and, in particular, at the beginning of this century at least when it comes to cities within the European Union. This shift means abandoning a purely functional approach to transport planning and turning to balanced development based on the principles of sustainable mobility. This paper provides recommendations on how to evaluate transport projects that respect the principle of sustainable mobility, i.e. sustainable urban development.