Accessibility and liveability are the key drivers in addressing sustainable mobility issues. The city environment and its infrastructure are threatened by aerial and water-based pollution caused by current transport modes. Furthermore, the erosion of access to public spaces, gentrification and loss of urban diversity challenge socio-cultural functions.Private transport, i.e. the car, shows a growing incompatibility with accessibility and liveability. Low-emission vehicles will not deliver a sustainable solution.
Public transport systems have to embrance strategic and spatial functionality, and so address a wider range of sustainability issues, offering a de facto collective space to compensate for public space eroded by privatization and building for commercial gain. Transport systems have a long history of driving urban development.
Lately, many cities in Europe, recalling the efficiencies of nineteenth-century systems, have reintroduced trams. The modern tram is, however, a long way from its noisy, clattering ancestors. It must be different in order to lure modern commuters out of their cars.
in THE ECO-DESIGN HANDBOOK, Thames & Hudson, London, 2005
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