Planning for sustainable mobility in transition cities: Cycling losses and hopes of revival in Novi Sad, Serbia

Abstract

© 2015 Elsevier B.V. The intensive urbanization and broader-scale motorization of cities in political and economic transition call for new research on how the political and socio-economic context of the transition has shaped sustainable mobility planning. Much remains to be learned on how changes to the political and economic landscape of transition cities have affected the development and consolidation of sustainable mobility planning and how municipal stakeholders involved in sustainable mobility planning respond to the changing nature of transitional cities - including market liberalization, economic growth, development pressures, and political restructuring. By using the case study of Novi Sad, Serbia, this paper examines a transition city with a long tradition of cycling infrastructure planning now facing frictions and setbacks with regards to sustaining and strengthening the cycling culture and infrastructure. Our findings reveal that the economic growth and the new regulations that accompanied the transition in the 1990s negatively impacted bicycling parking facilities and bicycling safety. The political transition also introduced a new planning practice and institutional arrangement that did not comprehensively consider daily cyclists' needs, yet recently allowed for new civic participation and adjustments to flagship cycling projects.