Fair street space allocation: ethical principles and empirical insights

Creutzig, F., Javaid, A., Soomauroo, Z., Lohrey, S., Milojevic-Dupont, N., Ramakrishnan, A., … (2020). Transport Reviews, 1-23

paper accepted manuscript

Urban street space is increasingly contested. However, it is unclear what a fair street space allocation would look like. In this study that we conducted with students from TU Berlin as part of a seminar, we developped a framework of ten ethical principles and three normative perspectives on street space – streets for transport, streets for sustainability, and streets as place – and discussed 14 derived street space allocation mechanisms. We contrasted these ethically grounded allocation mechanisms with real-world allocation in 18 streets in Berlin.

We found that car users, on average, had 3.5 times more space available than non-car users. While some allocation mechanisms are more plausible than others, none is without disputed normative implications. All of the ethical principles, however, suggest that on-street parking for cars is difficult to justify, and that cycling deserves more space. We argued that ethical principles should be systematically integrated into urban and transport planning.

This paper was selected as an “Editors’ Choice”.