Interfakultäre Koordinationsstelle für Allgemeine Ökologie (IKAÖ) |
Forschung
Comparative Transportation History
Urban traffic planning and politics since 1950. An actor-oriented investigation with special consideration of financial flows and environ- mental impacts by means of examples from Switzerland, Germany, and the United States.
project start: 1999
project completion: 2001
funded by the Swiss National
Science Foundation
The economic and social significance of transportation has increased strongly again in the last decades with no end to this development in sight. As a result, problems in the field of transportation history acquire more and more of a general social historical dimension. The project proposed herein intends to illustrate interactions between discursive processes and the manifold -- intended as well as not-intended -- impacts of policy. In the foreground is the political role of finance in the State and the environmental impact of transportation. That these two central aspects are closely related illustrates among other things the debate about the external costs of transportation that has been going on for years. The focus will therefore be on the contribution of the State to the promotion of the various transportation modes, and with it at the core, the question of leeway in the actions of State institutions. This will be approached from the perspective of urban communities because the conflicting relationship of mature infrastructure to the needs of a steadily increasing auto-oriented lifestyle crops up most conspicuously on this level of politics. Supporting the analysis from the community level is also the fact that, in contrast to higher levels of government, the discourse in transportation politics occurs much more in the open here. The comparative approach makes it possible to draw a sharper boundary between local pseudo-explanations and national styles of transportation development. The USA was chosen for its leading role in its decided support of auto dominance. The investigation of transportation history in the region of the former Federal Republic of Germany shows on the one hand how the development style in the USA was significant as a role model, but helps on the other hand to explain to what extent and why national differences can occur. The swiss cities have in recent years increasingly become a reference object for international transportation science, thanks to its comparably high proportion of public transportation. Next to the traditional instruments of historical analysis, approaches from political, transportation, and environmental sciences are also used. The investigation is therefore characterized by strong interdisciplinarity.
Publications
- Haefeli U. 1996: Ein Dorf wird Vorstadt. Suburbanisierung am Beispiel der bernischen Agglomerationsgemeinde Münchenbuchsee. Zürich: Chronos.
- Haefeli U. 1997: Rekonstruktionen historischer Landschaftsfotografien. Der Beitrag einer neuen Methode zum umweltgeschichtlichen Diskurs. In: Traverse - Zeitschrift für Geschichte. Heft-Nr. 2. S. 69-82.
- Haefeli U. 1998: Der lange Weg zum Umweltschutzgesetz. Die Antwort des politischen Systems auf das neue gesellschaftliche Leitbild "Umweltschutz". In: Allgemeine Geschichtsforschende Gesellschaft Schweiz (AGGS) (Hg.): 1798-1848-1998. Bd. 3.
- Haefeli U. 1998: Die Vorortsperspektive - Suburbanisierung im Raum Bern am Beispiel der Gemeinde Münchenbuchsee. In: Lüthi C., Meier B. (Hg.): Bern - eine Stadt bricht auf. Schauplätze und Geschichten der Berner Stadtentwicklung zwischen 1798 und 1998. Bern: Haupt. S. 105-122.
- Haefeli U. 1998: Der finanzielle Handlungsspielraum städtischer Verkehrspolitik. Eine akteursorientierte Analyse am Beispiel Bielefelds 1950-1995, Wuppertal Paper Nr. 85, Wuppertal Institut für Klima, Energie und Umwelt GmbH, Wuppertal.
- Haefeli U. 1998: Gas geben oder das Steuer herumreissen? Verkehrspolitik und Verkehrsplanung in Bielefeld nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg. In: Mitteilungen des Historischen Vereins Ravensberg.
- Haefeli, U. 1999: Luftreinhaltepolitik im Strassenverkehr in den USA, in Deutschland und in der Schweiz: Ein Vergleich der Entwicklung nach 1945. In: Traverse - Zeitschrift für Geschichte 1999/2, 171-191.
- Haefeli U. 2001: Public transport can pay. A historical analysis of transport policies in Bern (Switzerland) and Bielefeld (Germany) since 1950, Conference paper Swiss Transport Research Conference (STRC) 2001, http://www.ivt.baug.ethz.ch/strc.html.
- Haefeli U. 2001: Stadt und Autobahn- eine Neuinterpretation. In: Schweizerische Zeitschrift für Geschichte Vol.51, 181-202.
- Haefeli U. 2002: Agglomerationsverkehr und Bundeshilfe. Hinweise aus einer vergleichenden Untersuchung. Neue Zürcher Zeitung 10.9.2002.
