Paving the way for the use of alternative means of transport to the automobile is no simple matter. Numerous studies have demonstrated the correlation between available public transportation, the road network (infrastructure and parking facilities) and the location of the activities of residents in urban areas (Pharoah and Apel 1995, Wegener and Furst 1999, Kaufmann 2000). The obvious conclusion is that any attempt to encourage modal split must take these three factors into account. Notably, an attempt to change transport alone by increasing the available public transportation, carefully allocating the use of city roads and controlling parking facilities is ineffectual if the city is being built around road networks located on the outskirts. In fact, this is a sure way of encouraging the use of the automobile: the result is a vicious circle in which new urbanisation is developed around road networks, thereby increasing automobile usage. In this situation, the use of the car becomes ingrained in lifestyles and leads both investors and families to seek housing based on their accessibility by road. The paper is divided into three parts: the first comprises an analysis of the French situation, which is particularly interesting in that urban spread there is at quite an advanced stage. This first section looks at the image of the city, the aspirations of its residents, the opportunities and constraints with respect to housing location, as well as residents' modal practice by means of a comparative survey carried out in four cities. The analysis shows that the urban dynamic currently at work in these French cities is leading to a dispersed urbanisation of the outer suburbs and to the use of the automobile, even though this context does not always correspond to the desires of the population. The second section compares the French context with European cities that have developed urban models or planning policies promoting non-automobile means of transport. It shows that the French situation is not inevitable, but rather the result of current legislation and of existing urban development. The third section studies the case of Geneva, as a Swiss canton attempting to curb an urban dynamic - that of the city built around road networks - by means of a new master plan for urban development that sets forth a strict form of cohabitation between urban development and public transport accessibility. The paper concludes with a general reflection on the need to abandon the fatalistic view of the opportunities that exist for redirecting modal practice.
Abstract