16: Willingness to Support Traffic Policy Measures: The Role of Justice

The huge amount of car traffic in our cities definitely causes a lot of severe problems: pollution of air, energy consumption, land use, fragmentation of landscapes, increased danger of accidents etc. (Umweltbundesamt, 2001; WHO, 29.07.02). Although we have tried to manage these problems for many years, the situation has not improved. In fact, in most cities it has even exacerbated. Therefore, in order to efficiently reduce these negative impacts of traffic in the future, profound changes are necessary.

These changes will need to be implemented on different levels of society (cf. Monheim, 2001; Montada and Kals, 2000; Umweltbundesamt, 2001), e.g. on a political level, where mainly structural decisions concerning the fundamental management of traffic are made. These decisions are also frame the range of behavioural options of citizens as well as the relative quality of various modes of transport. Furthermore, on an individual level, every citizen is able to contribute to the solution of traffic problems in his or her everyday life. Although these two levels are strongly connected, in this chapter we want to examine the individual level in more detail.