The Green Wave : How communication, advocacy andparticipation measures are included indocuments important for increase bicycling inStockholm City and Nacka Municipality

Abstract: The world is becoming increasingly urban. This puts pressure on a number of functions within cities, not the least the transportation system. Motorized traffic is responsible for a number of negative environmental effects, such as carbon dioxide emissions and particle pollution. To halt this development an increased share of bicyclists is needed. Stockholm County is an area with rapid urbanization. Therefore, a comparative study was undertaken to analyse how Stockholm City and Nacka Municipality are including communication, advocacy and participation measures in documents important for increased bicycling. This as those measures are important to increase the number of bicyclists. The analysis was undertaken by using two typologies, a modified version of the Transtheoretical Model of Change (TTM) to understand how the two cases include communication and advocacy measures whereas Arnstein’s Ladder of Citizens Participation was chosen to understand how participation is included in the documents. The findings suggest many similarities between the two cases but Nacka Municipality perform better with their use of social media, and the activities ”bicycle-friendly workplace” and ”winter bicycling”. From the findings three recommendations where provided: create bicycle councils to improve inclusion of bicyclists in the processes. Second, it is important to have different type of role models across the municipality, both in socio-economic strong and weak areas. And third, create dedicated outlets for bicycle issues, tentatively on a social media outlet. This will increase the status of bicycles, it will promote bicycling as a good transportation choice and it open ups channels for citizens interaction.