Can anyone point me to any papers which analyse the relationship between
car ownership and car use in the UK? I have read and catalogued lots of
papers which the relationship between the built environment and either car
ownership car use, and occasionally both. Transport Trends shows how the
travel behaviour varies with car ownership on a national average basis,
but I don't seem to have anything which explores the complexities of the
relationship between the two
Apart from my own research (into the potential for carfree development),
this is another point which will be of relevance in the ongoing saga about
the eco-towns. One of the points we have been making is that car
ownership exerts a strong influence on car use, therefore if you build in
places where most people decide they need a car, or a car each, you will
be fighting an uphill battle to achieve modal shift. For a fairly
depressing illustration of the problem, you might be interested to see the
recent report on Cambourne, the new settlement in Cambridgeshire, on:
www.carl.co.uk/downloads/Cambourne.pdf.
We had a meeting of 5 national environmental groups a couple of weeks
ago. There is some lobbying going on behind the scenes, trying to
persuade the Government that they need to change tack on the locations
contained in the shortlist. A joint open letter to the Housing Minister
will be published some time over the next few days.
Steve Melia
Carfree UK &
University of the West of England
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