Understanding quality of life operationalization in policy - lessons from uk transport
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Presented at WCTR 2016 by Dr Louise Reardon www.wctrs-conference.com www.its.leeds.ac.uk/people/l.reardon
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Understanding quality of life operationalization in policy - lessons from uk transport
- 1. Institute for Transport Studies FACULTY OF ENVIRONMENT Understanding quality of life’s operationalization in policy: Lessons from UK transport Louise Reardon (l.reardon@leeds.ac.uk) Institute for Transport Studies, University of Leeds, UK WCTR, Shanghai, 10-15 July 2016
- 2. Introduction • Quality of life has entered the transport discourse but we know little about its affect • Looks at the operationalization of quality of life in the UK at both national and local levels • Quality of life has had a ‘sensitizing effect’ • But the treatment of quality of life as a separate goal puts it in competition with other objectives • Real policy change requires a more integrated way of thinking about quality of life and its implications
- 3. Overview • Explanation of policy framing/problem definition and why it is important to policy making • Identify how quality of life was framed at national level • Outline the impact of quality of life on the local level – ‘sensitizing effect’ • Only relevant to the extent it promotes economic growth – competing priorities
- 4. Policy framing • Rochefort and Cobb (1994); ‘the function of problem definition is at once to explain, to describe, to recommend, and, above all, to persuade.’ • Framing determines whether an issue gets on and stays on the political agenda • Categorisation of an issue is important to its recognition • Framing determines the rest of the policy cycle
- 5. Quality of life in the national discourse Weakening of ‘predict and provide’ – challenge to the idea of increased quality of life necessitated by increased car use • Sustainability/environmental challenge • Social challenge – road protests • Academic challenge to the logic Need to broaden transport policy’s purpose – recognise negative quality of life implications
- 6. Quality of life in the national discourse We need to strike a balance between securing economic development, protecting the environment and sustaining future quality of life – Secretary of State (1996) • Quality of life running alongside the other goals of the environment and the economy • Rhetoric continues into the New Labour Governments right up to 2009
- 7. Quality of life in national policy Delivering a Sustainable Transport System (2008) 1) Support economic competitiveness and growth 2) Reduce carbon dioxide emissions to tackle climate change 3) Contribute to better safety, security and health, by reducing injury and promoting active travel 4) Promote greater equality of opportunity to achieve a fairer society 5) To improve quality of life for transport and non- transport users, and to promote a healthy natural environment
- 8. Quality of life at National Level It [DaSTS] was trying to demonstrate that there was any range of issues the Department cared about… it wanted to show that we understood climate change for example, and some more abstract things like quality of life, because it is important to send the signal it isn’t just about building things.
- 9. ‘Sensitizing effect’ locally Resonates discursively – need for a wider perspective …it reflects on transport as a means to an end Quality of life is about not forgetting that there are people that live alongside our transport system …it’s seeing transport as about people and not just a technical engineering solution… it’s trying to think about transport in a broader way, not does it solve a certain technical problem you’ve got, but how does it affect people
- 10. Quality of life subservient to other agendas Sheffield City Region • While approach to growth about facilitating access to job opportunities through non-car modes then quality of life a relevant discourse • Reframing of growth towards road-building infrastructure saw quality of life become incompatible – the focus had shifted City of York • Approach to growth premised on being a nice place to live and work, bringing people to the area – removing pollution and cars is key
- 11. Conclusions • No tangible policy change • Seeing ‘quality of life’ as a separate goal/aim is not very helpful • Makes priorities appear competing • Need to focus on what quality of life is in transport, not what it is not • A model of transport policy framed within a quality of life framework may help to create this change – as all encompassing goal
Editor's Notes
- Kingdon on categories: “People will see a problem quite differently if it is put into one category rather than another. Thus much of the struggle over problem definition centres on the categories that will be used and the way they will be used. You may not be able to judge a problem by its category, but its category structures people’s perceptions of the problem in many important respects”
- UN Commission on Environment and Development – our common future – 1987 – first report to highlight negative environmental impact of growing consumption – depletion of natural resources, pollution European Conference of Ministers of Transport (1989) – highlighting the contribution of transport to climate problem Goodwin – new realism – more road infrastructure induces traffic demand – therefore reducing congestion futile reason for building more roads The idea that of the car owning democracy and that more ability to use the car would lead to better quality of life became significantly undermined Environmental concerns in the early 1990s start to pave the way for a broader policy agenda for transport – and the potential for considerations of QoL. ‘Predict and provide’ can be defined as ‘calculating how much unconstrained demand for road travel exists and adopting policy measures and providing funding streams to deliver the required capacity’ (Parkhurst and Dudley 2008, 51). This approach was at the core of British Transport policy from the 1960s onwards. It is arguably only in the mid to late 1990s, with concerns over affordability, an increased sense of environmentalism within the populous and concerns from transport specialists about the sustainability of the approach, that there is a weakening of the ‘predict and provide’ paradigm. So for example the provision of new roads actually induces demand and perpetuates the problem – increasing expense. High profile protests over new road projects and DfT subsequently launched a “great debate” about the future of transport policy. Linked to responses to UN reports which highlighted the negative effects of upward trends in consumption on the environment in terms of depletion of resources. The Major government commissioned a report in 1994 suggesting ways in which government policy needed to change in order to address the UN’s concerns and it argued that; ‘Our economic analysis of the environmental costs of different aspects of transport has led us to recommend measures to increase over time the cost of private transport. We recommend a balancing package of investment to increase the capacity, convenience and reliability of public transport, which is environmentally less damaging. The result of these measures should be improved access and a better quality of life both in towns and cities.’ During this period of conservative government we therefore see discussion of different approaches, but not really a significant policy change in terms of QoL, this only happens under the Labour government.
- Rhetoric continues buoyed on by the Eddington study which argued that transport infrastructure was broadly adequate, and therefore we should place more emphasis on making the most of existing infrastructure rather than building more and the Stern review which argued that there needed to be strong early action on climate change, because the social and environmental damage would be huge if not
- But in terms of policy we get five challenges, of which quality of life is but one, and again separate from other things you would associate with quality of life – growth, but also safety, equality of opportunity, air quality, fairness and equality. These challenges were to be pursued by local authorities in their local transport planning.