Celina Negro: Why do we need new communicative framings to win people over to the path to a car-free society? And what do these look like?

Many people understand campaign for a car-free city as a conflict
between car drivers and cyclists, the vision is not in the
foreground (e.g. strong focus on forms of transport and comparison
between bicycles and cars in the problematisation). The frame of a
liveable city is not yet an established idea in people's minds.
There is a lot of uncertainty about what a liveable city means, how
mobility and quality of life are related. On the one hand,
imagination is related to experiences and their evaluations (e.g.
satisfaction with parklets), but also the way of communicating the
visions must appear realistic. Whether people understand and share
the vision is one of the most important points for acceptance of
restrictive measures. Conclusion: - Both pull and pull measures are
needed for a transformation towards sustainable mobility. But there
is an "implementation gap": pull measures are politically preferred
due to fear of low public acceptance of push measures, among other
reasons. - Mobility research and planning: focus on how to best
combine different measures, but not the importance of communication
- The work is not a "how to do it" guide, but is about working out
which aspects should be taken into account with regard to public
acceptance. Conclusion and proposed solutions and suggestions:
Solution: New approach: Problematise congestion, parking,
increasing number of cars and focus on structural problems (guiding
principle of the car-right city) instead of problematising
individual behaviour. It has greater potential to cause a critical
reflection of the status quo and thus agreement that something has
to change about the current situation. These arguments are more
tangible, less likely to lead to a sense of attack on oneself and
the current mobility style. Interplay of problematisation and
solutions: Initiative: reduction of private cars is the solution
Not all of the problems mentioned can be solved by reducing the
number of private cars. It also requires infrastructural changes as
well as societal and institutional changes. A focus on car
reduction alone therefore makes the arguments less convincing for
many. Motivational function: Vision of a liveable city Initiative:
Vision of a liveable city leads to a better quality of life Many
people understand the campaign as a conflict between car drivers
and cyclists, the vision is not in the foreground (e.g. strong
focus on forms of transport and comparison between bicycles and
cars in the problematisation). The frame of a liveable city is not
yet an established idea in people's minds. There is a lot of
uncertainty about what a liveable city means, how mobility and
quality of life are related. Whether people understand and share
the vision is one of the most important points for acceptance of
restrictive measures.