This article describes how Amsterdam has succeeded in integrating environmental management policies with transport policies. First, for a better understanding of the process of delimitation of potential environmental areas, a short review of traffic and transportation developments will be given, within the setting of regional and city planning. With examples of both strategic and opportunistic motives, choices for the motorcar and public transport networks will be illustrated. Decisions about the function of essential parts of the network form a main issue. Very often, two functions are combined by way of compromise. For instance, urban public transport has to use the same route for local and express lines, and in the road network the same road is used as primary distributor and as local distributor. A similar problem is seen at regional levels: intercity and local railway services using the same track. With the increasing use of the network, this combination of two functions becomes more and more difficult, to the extent that neither of them can meet demand without frustrating the other. New choices and even new compromises, will seriously effect the size of environmental areas. Next the efforts to influence the demand for car use in Amsterdam will be discussed briefly, with an emphasis on public transport, parking policy and car ownership. Finally, two other issues of environmental management will be discussed: the removal of extraneous traffic and the reorganization of the system for internal movements. Results should not be expected to be spectacular, due to a range of (well known) limitations. However, some improvements are worth mentioning, even if they regard environmental places rather than environmental areas.
Abstract