1268 | 937 | Promise Paradox: The role of (quasi)promises in transport obduracy and stunted transitions

Despite emerging evidence that electric cars cannot alone bring about just and sustainable transitions in transport systems, and in fact may be slowing movement along a low carbon trajectory (e.g. Brand et al. 2021), the public discourse around them seems to imagine otherwise. In short, electric cars are often posited as _the_ solution to transport carbon emissions. The persuasiveness of the e-car promise enhances the resiliency and entrenches the obduracy of the motor vehicle transport system. _x000D_
_x000D_
Conversely, urban transition experiments that support the most socially and environmentally sustainable transport modes—such as provisional infrastructures supporting walking or cycling—are inherently and often explicitly fallible. That is, these types of experiments are at their best when all those involved acknowledge that they may not succeed or persist, and that these failures are in fact valuable learning opportunities. Transition experiments may therefore represent a sort of anti- or ‘quasi-promise’ that sometimes ‘scares away’ political support. Herein is a potentially detrimental paradox for realizing genuine transitions: on the one hand, hegemonic yet ultimately problematic mobility ‘regimes’ promising sustainability ‘solutions’; on the other hand, more ‘niche’ yet arguably more effective (or at least necessarily complimentary) mobility interventions promising potential setbacks._x000D_
_x000D_
Drawing on interviews with various actors who experiment with urban and/or transport interventions that support just and sustainable transitions, as well as mass media discourses on low-carbon ‘solutions’, this paper explores this paradox and discusses potential resolutions. _x000D_

Denver Vale Nixon
Maastricht University

ID Abstract: 937