Planning for climate-friendly transport in Norwegian rural areas

Abstract

This paper addresses how local land-use planning can facilitate climate-friendly transport in rural areas. Studies were conducted in four Norwegian municipalities with populations between 4400 and 10,600. 11% of the country’s population live in municipalities in this range. Understanding transport and planning in such settings is essential to reach climate goals. We highlight challenges of changing the built environment to facilitate climate-friendly transport. The contestation involves actor interests relating to the preservation of parking regimes, to the sensitivity of strengthening of climate-friendly transport’s competitiveness at the expense of car driving, and the difficulty of handling season-based variations in rural-centre management. The potential of rural policy packages to handle measures, actors and needs of different traveller groups in integration is crucial. We also argue that climate-friendly transport should not be based on a one-dimensional strategy of rural-centre densification but also consider how the built environment gives access for different transport modes.