Gender equality in Transport planning : The case of Mittstråket

Abstract: The aim of the thesis is to study and compare how gender equality is treated in transportplanning in regional transport initiatives at different planning levels. The background to thechoice of aim is that gender equality is a topic that is often forgotten in transport planning. Byconsciously planning and developing the built environment, it is possible to influence the dailylives of many people, among other things by enabling equality. Gender equality work is ademocratic work that strengthens human values and equal conditions, which shows theimportance of working to achieve a society where men and women have equal value. Moreover,gender equality has a direct connection in taking part in sustainable development. In terms oftraffic policy goals, gender equality is an area that has been raised strongly in recent times andinterest in gender equality in the transport sector is increasing. In 2001, the gender equalityperspective was strengthened with the transport policy goals. The Swedish Parliament and theGovernment's transport policy goals are the starting point in the thesis when regional andmunicipal documents are examined, more specifically Mittstråket project and all the reportsincluded within the project to see how they treat the transport policy goals from a gender equalityperspective. The review shows that gender equality, and above all gender equality in trafficplanning, is not an issue that has a particularly high priority at regional or municipality level. Inthe case study Mittstråket gender equality has only been included partially. Several of thedocuments present a vision that can be seen as good on paper but have no concrete strategies forhow gender equality should be integrated in the Mittstråket project. One of the reasons for this isprobably that gender equality is a soft, abstract value that is difficult to measure. The genderequality aspect is therefore easily forgotten, and no one reacts if this happens. The chosen casestudy is directly being affected by traffic planning by municipalities and on a regional level dueto the participants of that project being from different regions all over Sweden. Thus, whentalking about regional and municipal levels, strategies for the entire municipality, which is oftentraffic planning, do not deal with gender equality. One conclusion is also that there is a lack ofindicators, competence and tools to measure how the regions and municipalities treat the goalsand implementing results so the work with gender equality can be led in the right direction.