The European Federation for Transport and Environment (T&E) has drawn attention to the fact that there is no direct link between building transport infrastructure and economic growth. This is despite the widespread belief that transport growth fuels economic growth. The political process has proved hard to influence, but at the Gothenburg summit in 2001 the European Council concluded that action was needed to decouple transport growth and GDP growth, in particular by a shift from road to rail, water and public passenger transport. Since then there has been a move away from this conclusion and the van Miert report on trans-European networks again argued that transport growth was the motor of economic growth. The economic and environmental consequences associated with ignoring the need to decouple economic growth and transport growth are discussed.
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