Åriket - A Case Study of Conflicts in Urban Development

Abstract: Sustainable transport planning is a complex issue and has become a great challenge for today’s decision makers. One of the biggest concerns is how sustainable mobility can be reached; where social and economic interests can work together with environmental interests. By looking into a special case of transport planning in Åriket, Uppsala this paper analyses the decision making process as well as the response from other stakeholders presented as contesting story lines. The results show there are weaknesses in the planning process, where too few alternatives have been looked at and the methods used has not been able to handle the complex issues of sustainable development in an adequate way. From the contested story lines the different opinions in the question has been identified as either being a part of the old conventional transport paradigm or a part of the new sustainable mobility paradigm, which can be used as a guideline for the decision makers in what way to go for reaching sustainable mobility.