Abstract
Brussels (Belgium) is one of several major cities with a recent emblematic pedestrianisation project aiming to give public space 'back to people'. Wondering whether these initiatives represent 'cracks in the system' of car dominance, we studied how support for the pedestrianisation has evolved across society, taking into account people's socioeconomic and mobility attributes as well as geographical scale. We conducted surveys before and after implementation among metropolitan area residents, people employed in the area and passers-by through online and face-to-face surveys. Findings show a strong increase in overall support, both for the pedestrianisation the central boulevards (now with a majority now in favour) as for a further roll-out. Residential location nearby the pedestrianised centre is identified as a factor of support, but most importantly, habitual car use and remain strong predictive factors of opposition, confirming the various descriptions in literature of automobility as a tenacious socio-technical system.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 104577 |
| Number of pages <span style="color:red"p> <font size="1.5"> ✽ </span> </font> | 12 |
| Journal | Cities |
| Volume | 143 |
| Issue number | 2023 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Dec 2023 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:This work was funded by the Governement of the Brussels Capital Region (contract number BMB/DS-DB/2016.1004 ). The authors would like to thank Mareile Wiegmann, Sofie Vermeulen and Ewoud Heyndels for their contribution to the set-up and analysis of the 2017 phase of the study, the Brussels Regional Mobility administration for their support, as well as the three autonomous reviewers whose insightful remarks led to important improvements of this article.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 The Authors
Keywords
- pedestrianisation
- open streets
- car dominance
- low-traffic neighbourhoods
- public space
- mobility regime
- Brussels