“All transport problems are essentially mathematical”: The uneven resonance of academic transport and mobility knowledge in Brussels

Abstract

This paper presents an inquiry into the capacity of transport and mobility studies to critically engage with contemporary policies. Drawing on the conceptualization of circuits of knowledge, the paper scrutinizes the extent to which transport policy agendas are framed around various approaches within academia. An extensive literature review demonstrates that the academic field of transport and mobility is organized around a hegemonic core of “neoclassical” and “sustainable” approaches. Meanwhile, a critique of these dominant approaches is emerging in an attempt to (re)embed mobility issues in urban political economy. This three-fold knowledge typology visibly resonates within transport policy agendas in Brussels, where we detect a growth-oriented and largely de-politicized dual hegemony of neoclassical and sustainable narratives, with critical academic voices rarely entering official agendas. The paper concludes with a reflection on the difficulties, yet also the need to mobilize critical academic knowledge in the field of transport and mobility.

Full text

“All transport problems are essentially
mathematical”: The uneven resonance of academic
transport and mobility knowledges in Brussels
Wojciech Kębłowski
Vrije Universiteit Brussel, COSMOPOLIS Centre for Urban Research, Brussels, Belgium
Université Libre de Bruxelles, Institut de Gestion de l'Environnement et d'Aménagement du Territoire,
Belgium
David Bassens
Vrije Universiteit Brussel, COSMOPOLIS Centre for Urban Research, Brussels, Belgium
Kębłowski, W., Bassens, D. (2018) ‘All Transport Problems are Essentially Mathematical:’ The Uneven
Resonance of Academic Transport and Mobility Knowledge in Brussels, Urban Geography, 39, 3, 413–
437.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/02723638.2017.1336320
CC BY-NC: This license allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any
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Abstract: This paper presents an inquiry into the capacity of transport and mobility studies to
critically engage with contemporary policies. Drawing on the conceptualization of circuits of
knowledge, the paper scrutinizes the extent to which transport policy agendas are framed
around various approaches within academia. An extensive literature review demonstrates
that the academic field of transport and mobility is organized around a hegemonic core of
“neoclassical” and “sustainable” approaches. Meanwhile, a critique of these dominant
approaches is emerging in an attempt to (re)embed mobility issues in urban political
economy. This three-fold knowledge typology visibly resonates within transport policy
agendas in Brussels, where we detect a growth-oriented and largely de-politicized dual
hegemony of neoclassical and sustainable narratives, with critical academic voices rarely
entering official agendas. The paper concludes with a reflection on the difficulties, yet also the
need to mobilize critical academic knowledge in the field of transport and mobility.
Keywords: transport policy, sustainable transport, urban political economy, critical urban
theory, sociology of knowledge, circuits of knowledge.
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1. Introduction
“All transport problems are essentially mathematical problems.”
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Across the globe, transport has assumed a crucial role in metropolitan governance. Several
key notions in contemporary urban policy and planning that imagine cities as “smart,”
“compact” or “resilient” hinge on mobility “solutions” to metropolitan problems (Debnath,
Chin, Haque, & Yuen, 2014; Eichhorst, Bongardt, & Miramontes, 2011; Holden & Norland,
2005). Yet, despite its increasing centrality, transport is rarely scrutinized in terms of its
contribution to the uneven socio-spatial development of urban areas, for instance through the
reproduction of class, gender, and ethnic divides (Lucas, van Wee, & Maat, 2016; Reigner,
Brenac, & Hernandez, 2013). While a critical approach to transport could seek to unveil how
socio-spatial inequalities are related to political choices over distribution of scarce funds,
practitioners and policy-makers appear to frame mobility issues in different terms altogether.
As demonstrated above in a somewhat extreme statement from a high-ranked representative
of Bruxelles Mobilité, the process of developing transport policy involves a language imbued
by mathematical models and technical knowledge. In this paper, we argue that the
reproduction of such policy frames builds on clear resonances with specific types of academic
knowledge. As we demonstrate below, many academic contributions do not focus on issues of
uneven socio-spatial development. Instead, they center the transport debate on issues of
utility, efficiency and economic growth achieved through “rational” planning and decision-
making. Transport is thus approached in a manner that can be understood as “neoclassical”
(Girnau & Blennemann, 1989; Grant-Muller, Mackie, Nellthorp, & Pearman, 2001). Or, since
a few decades, by introducing a number of environmental and social issues to the debate and
therefore positioning itself as a critique of the neoclassical approach, a growing body of
literature has framed the discussion about mobility as a matter of sustainable development
(Banister, 2008; Hickman, Hall, & Banister, 2013; May, 2013). However, this literature has
seldom posed the fundamental question of what it is that “we” want to sustain in the first
place, limiting its capacity to form a critical counterpoint to the neoclassical perspective.
The existence of these multiple approaches raises the key issue of how academic knowledge
about transport and mobility helps to legitimize and reinforce policy discourse and action.
There exists strong evidence that knowledge developed in the academia has tangible effects
on policy (Healey, 2008, 2013). It can be safely assumed that the field of transport and
Interview with a member of the board of directors of Bruxelles Mobilité, the administration of the Brussels-
1
Capital Region responsible for transport and mobility.
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mobility is no exception to this rule, as it often assumes an “applied” character and becomes
appropriated as a framing resource by practitioners, planners, and policymakers. The aim of
this paper is therefore to identify the varying degree to which different knowledges emerging
from the academic field of transport and mobility resonate with contemporary urban
transport and mobility policy. Furthermore, we are interested in the capacity of transport and
mobility studies to assume a “critical” character by engaging with social realities and
highlighting their political and economic underpinnings (Davidson & Iveson, 2015; Legacy,
2015). Our approach relies on a reconstruction of different “circuits of knowledge”
(Featherstone & Venn, 2006; Healey, 2013; McCann, 2008) in the field of urban transport and
mobility, in which we observe potential processes of “frame resonance” (Snow, Rochford,
Worden, & Benford, 1986). We apply this type of conceptualization to stress that academics
and practitioners alike are inserted in social networks that grant them access to intellectual
resources—i.e. “knowledge” or “expertise”—as well as the authority and choice to take
political action.
The setting of our inquiry is Brussels, a city that constitutes a salient case for at least two
reasons. First, as it hosts various European Union institutions, we can hypothesize that its
metropolitan actors lie within physical and networked proximity to transnational policy
circles. Second, turning to the different types of transport-related knowledge that is
circulating, from the onset we should note a long-standing tradition of functionalist and car-
oriented planning in Brussels. As it continues to generate primarily technical
conceptualizations of local mobility problems, it may prevent practitioners and policy makers
from connecting with alternative agendas that embed urban transport and mobility in wider
political and economic debates. Earlier research has indeed demonstrated the long-lasting
relationship between technical knowledge, political consensus and infrastructural
development in Brussels, not in the least exemplified by the debate about a metropolitan-wide
metro-and-rail network (Damay, 2014; Zitouni & Tellier, 2013). In this contribution, we wish
to elaborate on the more systematic relationship between academic knowledges and place-
based policy agendas.
The paper is structured as follows. Sections two and three detail theoretical and
methodological considerations regarding the analysis of frame resonance between academic
ideas and transport and mobility policy agendas. Section four corroborates the hypothesis
about three distinct approaches in the extant literature on urban transport and mobility,
respectively demonstrating what we identify as “neoclassical,” “sustainable,” and “political-
economic” undercurrents. Sections five and six trace the extent to which these approaches
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coincide with how transport and mobility issues are framed by practitioners and policy-
makers in Brussels, and give rise to particular policy agendas. The analysis of these agendas
reveals that the degree to which various scholarly approaches resonate with the policy field is
very uneven, as critical transport ideas focusing to a much greater extent on political-
economic undercurrents, have not engendered a coherent agenda. This leads us, in section
seven, to reflect on the inevitable “situatedness” of any critique, and its resultant
“immobility.” We conclude the article with a discussion on pathways for future research, in
particular demonstrating the need to the paper ends with a plea to develop a framework to
scrutinize how potentially “critical” policies travel.
2. Conceptualizing the knowledge relation between academic and policy fields
Central to building a critical urban transport theory and praxis is the need for reflexivity about
the role that academic knowledge may play in shaping urban realities. Of course, this process
does not entail that academic ideas simply materialize in an urban setting. Rather, it has been
theorized that academic knowledge can serve as an “intellectual fix” that may gradually help
to secure a political consensus (“political fix”) and produce particular infrastructural and
spatial typologies (“infrastructural fix” (Healey, 2008) and “spatial fix” [(Harvey, 2001)]).
Importantly, producing academic knowledge in applied fields such as transport and mobility
often hinges on bilateral exchanges with non-academic actors. This relation has been
fruitfully conceptualized and analyzed through the notion of circuits of knowledge
(Featherstone & Venn, 2006; Healey, 2013; McCann, 2008), which embrace a wide range of
non-academic actors including (but not limited to) politicians, technocrats, civil servants,
consultants and urban planning “gurus”, civil society groups, and private companies. Inherent
in the notion of circuits of knowledge is the acknowledgement of the power of academics in
influencing how policy agendas are set by practitioners and policy makers, including how
problems are defined (or not), visions are designed (or not), and solutions are fabricated (or
not). Potentially, academic knowledge may help dominant actors work towards stabilizing
and reproducing their position by setting research and policy agendas along existing problem
definitions. Thus forged knowledge hegemonies or “intellectual fixes” often exclude
“alternative” visions and solutions from a purposely narrowed-down debate. This helps to
sustain the (post-)political order (Mouffe, 2005), as the usual vector of “evidence-based”
decision-making is dominated by the opposing one of “decision-based evidence-making”
(Slater, 2008, p. 219).
Yet, not all kinds of academic knowledge are likely to be equally influential in policy circles. In
a plural field such as transport and mobility, where different approaches are vested in
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diverging ontological, methodological, and epistemological positions, it can be hypothesized
that different academic knowledges will have diverse capacities in terms of entering the social
realities of policy making. While subject to both internal and external tensions, different
circuits ultimately reflect a community of academics and non-academics, who share a
common way of “framing” reality. Following Goffmann (1974, p. 21), the concept of a “frame”
or “framework” captures processes by which people try to make sense of their environment
through “schemata of interpretation.” These “schemata” enable one to locate, perceive,
identify, and label occurrences within their life space and world at large. Framing these
occurrences imbues them with a collective meaning that influences subsequent collective
action (Snow et al., 1986, p. 464). In our case, we are interested to what extent policy makers
and practitioners draw on academic frames when making sense of the transport reality. This
academic potential, we argue, to a significant degree depends on the amount of “resonance”
between scholarly work and the worldviews of policy makers and practitioners (Benford &
Snow, 2000; Scheufele, 2000; Snow et al., 1986). By utilizing the concept of “frame
resonance”, we highlight the need for transport and mobility scholars to be more sensitive to
why certain frames emerging from academia are effective in guiding action, and how this
effectiveness depends on what Benford and Snow identify as frame consistency, empirical
credibility, and the credibility of the claims-makers (p. 620-621). It is through the processes of
frame resonance that academic knowledge plays a key role in terms of stabilizing a circuit of
knowledge and providing an intellectual fix to legitimize policy action.
This role can be exemplified by the case of metropolitan-wide metro-and-rail network in
Brussels, which has been on the local agenda since a few decades. First, frame consistency is
noticeable here in the congruency between beliefs, claims, and actions of policy-makers
embracing a dominant frame that advocates developing an “efficient” and “sustainable”
transport system in a metropolitan area. Academic knowledge has helped to establish the
internal consistency of the frame, for instance by offering mathematical models allowing to
translate the complexity of the world into projective technical models used to adjust rail and
metro capacities and frequencies (Damay, 2014). Second, empirical credibility, which
depends on the degree to which a given frame is consistent with effects in the world, has been
built by continuous academic claims that positive externalities can be generated by
organizing urban development around metro-and-rail nodes (Frenay, 2009). At the same
time, these assertions have been contradicted by academics highlighting the socio-spatial
unevenness of transport infrastructure (Lebrun & Dobruszkes, 2012). Finally, the role of
credibility and persuasiveness of claims-makers articulating the policy frame can be observed
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in the recent case of modal split projections used to make or break an urban development plan
in a potentially high-value location (Boussauw & Lauwers, 2015).
3. Methodology
Following the hypothesis about differential resonance of academic knowledge in policy-
making circuits, our analysis of mobility policy in Brussels required detecting existing
approaches to urban transport in the academic literature. Its initial screening suggested that
bifurcations were in place, as certain strands of the literature have chosen the label of
“paradigm” as a rallying signifier (Banister, 2008) and a way to separate themselves from
other approaches. While the notion of paradigm is too strong a term, the observation of these
bifurcations in the initial screening allowed us to hypothesize that the literature was
organized around different dynamic cores, which we labelled as “neoclassical,” “sustainable”
and “political-economic” approaches, and sought to further qualify and nuance. Observing
the silence on socio-spatially inequalities resulting from—or not being addressed by—policies
developed in Brussels, a next step consisted of a second, more thorough screening of
scholarly publications as to whether resonances with the academic debate on these issues
could be found. Therefore, the queries we ran applied not only keywords such as “urban
transport,” “urban mobility,” “transport policy,” “transport planning,” but also—to explicitly
detect critical perspectives—“equity,” “equality,” “justice,” “commons”, “right,” “critical,”
“alternative.” To provide a better link between this review and the debate in Brussels, we
focused on primarily European, both English- and French-speaking literature, and performed
the queries in cairn.info, Google Scholar, ScienceDirect, Web of Science, as well as libraries of
Université Libre de Bruxelles and Vrije Universiteit Brussel. Out of the results obtained, we
have identified 800 to-citations articles as the wide literature on urban transport and
planning from the past 50 years. Out of this group, based on citations results we further
selected 175 articles for further in-depth review.
The second methodological step consisted of an in-depth analysis of how transport policy in
Brussels is organized around particular frames and agendas. To this end, we studied policy
framing by practitioners in the policy context of the Brussels-Capital Region (BCR).
2
Composed of 19 municipalities, the BCR comprises the core of the wider Brussels
metropolitan area. While having no authority over its Flemish or Walloon fringe, the BCR
officially develops a metropolitan vision on transport and mobility issues that effectively
supersede the municipal scale. We began by analyzing how local academics, institutions and
citizens’ groups make sense of transport and mobility issues in Brussels by detecting what key
Unless stated otherwise, throughout the text we use the term “Brussels” to refer to the Brussels Capital Region.
2
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problems are defined, what broad visions behind transport are outlined, and what specific
solutions are proposed. To capture different discourses on transport and mobility present in
Brussels, 19 semi-structured interviews were conducted with high-rank officials representing
and—due to their strategic position—actively defining key stakes and strategies within the
policy field. The interviewees included mobility authorities at the municipal, regional, and
federal level, public transport operators, members of the civil society, and local academics.
We asked our interlocutors about broad transport policy agendas as well as particular
transport projects currently developed or discussed in Brussels. The interviews were then
coded to allow for an effective narrative analysis to trace how interviewees frame and make
sense of the complex Brussels transport and mobility reality. We further reviewed academic
and grey literature produced by the interviewees’ institutions, including the project of
Regional Sustainable Development Plan (Brussels-Capital Region, 2014), the Regional
Mobility Plan (Bruxelles Mobilité, 2011), policy reports, political party programs, bulletins and
magazines published by citizen groups, academic articles specifically dealing with the
Brussels’ case, and a variety of newspaper and blog articles.
4.Three scholarly approaches to of urban transport and mobility
The screening of literature on transport and mobility has led us to identify three sets of
academic approaches. The subsequent in-depth analysis showed that although these
approaches are structured around multiple dynamic “cores,” they show commonalities,
porous boundaries, and engagements across positions.
4.1 Neoclassical approaches
Our discussion on three distinct approaches in urban transport and mobility opens with the
identification of what we label as “neoclassical” approaches. They combine two core
perspectives that at first sight may appear quite distinct: transport engineering on the one
hand, and transport economics on the other. Transport engineering tends to focus on
managing transport systems as a whole, based on models that predict transport demand.
Transport economics, on the other hand, often conceptualizes transport policies by referring
to the alleged rationality of the individual user and their drive to maximize individual utility.
While there exist numerous differences between these two perspectives, there appears to be
little disagreement between them. We argue that, when applied to the policy field, they
effectively dovetail into a coherent and commanding neoclassical position that has been
embraced and reproduced by an overwhelming number of academic articles in transport-
focused journals.
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The neoclassical body of work appears to build on two basic but largely unquestioned
principles. First, both engineers and economists approach transport as an essentially rational
discipline. On the systemic level, they build on empiricism, according to which scientific
knowledge about transport is acquired primarily from empirical data, rather than from
theoretical conceptualizations. This stance “is typically accompanied by the predictive
approach of naïve instrumentalism, by which the validity of any model is solely determined
by the numerical accuracy of its predictions [and thus] ‘the theory gives rise to the
model’ (Bell, 1997, p. 36)” (Timms, 2008, p. 400). This perspective has been particularly
characteristic of engineering studies. It gave rise to “predict-and-provide” strategies (Owens,
1995) that focus on offering a continuous response to ever-increasing transport demand.
While employing mathematical models and computations, this approach also makes frequent
analogies to natural laws, as in case of the “gravity model” that by alluding to Newtonian
physics (Erlander & Stewart, 1990). The micro-economist position, on the other hand, is
somewhat less deterministic, since it recognizes both ontic and epistemic uncertainty, as for
instance in random utility theory (Cascetta, 2009). Yet, transport economists do project a
largely liberal perspective in which drivers and passengers are assumed to be making
“pragmatic,” “utility-based,” “rational” and “free” choices in order to maximize their utility
when opting for particular travel patterns, which may have further impact on decisions about
housing or employment location (as criticized by Dobruszkes & Duquenne, 2004).
Second, both engineers and economists envision transport planning as major contributor to
economic growth. Better transport infrastructure supposedly leads to reduced transaction
costs, as it leads to increased overall speeds, smoother traffic flows, and consequently to
decreased travel times that are monetized and deemed “unproductive” (as criticized by Jain
& Lyons, 2008, p. 81). To achieve this, transport engineers have developed traffic forecasting
and demand models that to a large extent follow the four-stage transport model of trip
generation, distribution, mode choice and assignment (McNally, Hensher, & Button, 2007).
These models have been widely applied alongside econometric analyses, computable general
equilibrium (CGE) models (Bröcker, Korzhenevych, & Schürmann, 2010; Buckley, 1992; de
Almeida, Haddad, & Hewings, 2010; Venables, 2007), and the cost-benefit analysis (CBA)
(Girnau & Blennemann, 1989; Jones, Moura, & Domingos, 2014; Litman, 1997), which over
years have become the most representative and particularly frequently applied instruments
within the neoclassical toolbox.
As a result, neoclassical engineering and micro-economist approaches continue to be
received in particularly powerful ways in policy circles. Neoclassical conceptualizations and
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methodologies have given transport an aura of an almost uniformly “expert”-led, highly
technical and essentially “rational” scientific discipline coded in mathematical language.
These approaches also tend to imbue policy makers with a sense of agency to act on complex
realities based on the models put forward by academics. The prevalence of the neoclassical
thought is discernible in the persistence of close ties between transport policy-making on the
one hand, and civic engineering and economics on the other. Despite recent critiques of
neoclassical approaches, which we outline below, their continuous importance is evident.
CBA remains popular among transport academics and practitioners alike (Eliasson, 2009;
Rotaris, Danielis, Marcucci, & Massiani, 2010), having been widely embraced by the
“intelligent” and “smart” transport systems that rely on “big data” collection and processing
(Velaga, Beecroft, Nelson, Corsar, & Edwards, 2012).
4.2. Sustainable approaches
The neoclassical emphasis on the car as the primary transport technology, the resultant
mono-functionalism and physical separation of people and traffic, and the predominantly
technical, quantitative, and descriptive character of neoclassical approaches to transport have
seen a challenge from a number of transport scholars over the last decades. The “sustainable
mobility paradigm” (Banister, 2008, 2011a, 2011b; Banister & Hickman, 2013; Tight et al.,
2011) appears as the main conceptualization in this regard. This perspective vigorously
supports designing large, dense (“proximity-based”), and “mixed-use” cities by establishing
stronger links between land-use and transport policy, and thereby helping to reduce the
number, scale and length of journeys through limiting distances between activities and
functions. This approach therefore promotes a shift from car towards “soft” transport modes
and public transport. It further breaks with purely economic perspectives on mobility by
embracing a wider spectrum of environmental and social challenges, paying more attention
to individual behaviors and lifestyles, and calling for more participative ways of generating
transport policies and practices to include a wider range of urban stakeholders. “Sustainable”
transport is thus envisioned as “an essential element in city viability, vibrancy and vitality
(Banister, 2011b, p. 953) that is both “attractive and affordable” (Banister, 2008, p. 75). It
constitutes the key component of the “good city” (Jacobs, 2011) not only economically
performing in the neo-classical terms, but also socially cohesive and diverse,
environmentally-friendly, healthy and participative. While these are the core aspects of the
sustainable perspective to transport, it has to be noted that they have often been interpreted
and appropriated at odds with Banister’s (2008) original work, as demonstrated by Gössling &
Cohen (2014).
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Scholars emphasizing the issue of sustainability have regularly voiced their critique of CBA
(Grant-Muller et al., 2001; Thomopoulos, Grant-Muller, & Tight, 2009; van Wee, 2012).
However, their efforts have first and foremost focused on improving this neoclassical tool,
instead of rejecting it altogether. Thus conceived multi-criteria analysis (Tudela, Akiki, &
Cisternas, 2006), social cost-benefit analysis (Saitua, 2007), multi-actor multi-criteria
analysis (Macharis, De Witte, & Turcksin, 2010), as well as socially- and environmentally-
oriented transport appraisals (Carse, 2011; Geurs, Boon, & Van Wee, 2009) have led public
authorities to develop traffic models incorporating a variety of social and environmental
factors. Equally influential in this regard have been the calls for a more profound
acknowledgement of issues of accessibility, equality, social justice, social exclusion and
transport disadvantage in transport planning (Church, Frost, & Sullivan, 2000; Lucas, 2006,
2012; Lucas, Bates, Moore, & Carrasco, 2016; Van Wee & Geurs, 2011).
In defense of their respective contributions to the advancement of transport theory and
methodology, scholars and practitioners representing the neoclassical and sustainable
perspective have been engaged in a vigorous debate. Nonetheless, their discussion reveals
striking overlaps, similarities and implicit agreements. However useful may have been the
attempts to balance mathematical models and tools by embracing a variety of social and
environmental aspects, the neoclassical concern with “‘law’ seeking, model building, and the
articulation of ‘theory,’” which had long been identified as a significant limitation (Hurst,
1973, p. 168), seems to prevail in these efforts. Placing stronger emphasis on the issues of
governance, environmental damage and social inequality may have expanded the scope of
challenges related to transport beyond those relating purely to the question of technological
development. However, it has not prevented representatives of the “sustainable mobility
paradigm” from joining the neoclassical vision of transport research as a politically neutral
and objective activity. Consequently, “sustainable” approaches repeatedly refer to a plethora
of technological innovations and fixes—e.g. electric and low emission vehicles, biofuels,
shared and automated vehicles sharing, urban trams and light rail, bus rapid transit, high-
speed rail, tele-work, tele-shopping—for their potential to “regenerate” urban areas (Hickman
et al., 2013). Permeated by technological determinism (Offner, 1993), sustainable future-
thinking scenarios thus help to escape discussions on contemporary problems by setting
primarily quantitative objectives that relate primarily to physical or environmental issues (e.g.
CO2 emissions, energy use) while paying much less attention to political or social innovations
available (as criticized by Baeten, 2000; Timms, Tight, & Watling, 2014).
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Both neoclassical and sustainable approaches further tend to atomize structural causes for
mobility-related problems. Among the numerous studies that identify accessibility to
transport networks as the key factor of social inclusion (Bonsall & Kelly, 2005; Casas &
Delmelle, 2014; Farrington, 2007; Kenyon, Lyons, & Rafferty, 2002; Preston & Rajé, 2007;
van Wee, 2016) many have equated it with extending one’s individual, “rational” choice, for
instance among different housing locations, employment opportunities, and transport modes
(Farrington and Farrington, 2005). This perspective introduces an essentially normative and
moral geography by praising particular behaviors, lifestyles and modes (e.g. cycling, walking)
while condemning others (e.g. commuting by car, flying). “Good” citizens (e.g. public
transport users, carpoolers) are hence juxtaposed with “bad” ones (Green, Steinbach, &
Datta, 2012) in an essentially atomistic and moralizing perspective. This further encourages a
belief that the transition towards a “sustainable” society is attainable primarily via behavioral
means, and could embrace a socially diverse audience by uniformly embracing all social
strata, from the highly-mobile urbanites to the urban precariat. The consequent reluctance to
discuss potential social costs generated by this transition appears in tune with the tendency
neither to “explor[e] the broader implication of a comprehensive transport policy” (Beyazit,
2011, p. 130), nor to “address issues of power or social position of individual travelers” (Levy,
2013, p. 4).
4.3. Political-economic approaches
The de-politicized debate between neoclassical and sustainable transport approaches is not
only unproductive, as it fails to point out the political and economic underpinnings of
transport policy and practice, but also largely hegemonic, as it often excludes alternative
standpoints. Contra this hegemony, which may be offering a significantly incomplete
perspective on urban transport, has emerged a plethora of critical, political-economy
readings. They attempt to provide—complementary or alternative—re-politicized
perspectives on urban transport. A particularly influential among them has been the proposal
to recognize the “mobility turn” in social sciences (Sheller & Urry, 2006). By combining
insights from social sciences, geography, cultural studies, and political studies (Cresswell,
2010; Sheller, 2014; Urry, 2000, 2007), its proponents call into question the spatially fixed and
scalar perspective on mobility. However, they have repeatedly avoided engaging in profound
socio-spatial analyses, let alone investigations into issues of social class.
Nonetheless, a number of political-economy analyses of urban transport have explicitly
referred to a wide range of socio-political issues including—but not limited to—class, gender,
race, ethnicity, disability and age (Clark & Wenfei, 2013; Golub, Marcantonio, & Sanchez,
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2013; Hall, 2004; Kaplan, 1996; Law, 1999; Levy, 2013; Sanchez & Brenman, 2010; Sheller,
2014; Sultana, 2005). While the sustainable perspective rarely highlights the political causes
behind socio-spatial exclusion, inequality and poverty related to transport (Schwanen 2016;
Schwanen et al., 2015), the political-economic approaches share a fundamental recognition of
political processes and regulatory frameworks that condition mobility (Aldred, 2012; Baeten,
2000; Dobruszkes & Marissal, 2002; Hall, 2010; Henderson, 2004; Hurst, 1973; Martens,
Golub, & Robinson, 2012; Martens & Van Weelden, 2014; Røe, 2000; Schwanen, Banister, &
Anable, 2011; Yago, 1983).
Whereas political-economy approaches to urban transport understand power relations and
norms as inherent components of mobility (Butcher, 2011; Hall, 2004; Levy, 2013; Timms et
al., 2014), the neoclassical and sustainable perspectives obfuscate them. The neoclassical
approach explicitly relies on a “framing device of scientification” (Skillington, 1998, p. 460)
that reproduces the domination of authoritative figures such as engineers, whose “expert”
knowledge helps to legitimize existing power relations (Flyvbjerg, 1998). At the same,
alternative knowledges and perspectives are labelled as “non-expert,” making them
supposedly irrelevant and unwelcome. In a somewhat more conspicuous manner, the
proponents of sustainable transport and “good transport planning” (Tight et al., 2011, p. 1584)
call for generating policies and practices in a more participative manner (Banister, 2008,
2011a; Banister & Hickman, 2013). This entails embracing a wider spectrum of stakeholders
and has been demonstrated to provide new political opportunities for various (informal/
bottom-up) urban movements to partake in transport-related formal decision-making
(Batterbury, 2003). However, participation is envisioned here as assuming a consensus-
building role and building legitimacy and acceptability for the sustainable agenda (Isaksson &
Richardson, 2009), rather than providing room for a genuinely political debate in which a
variety of mobility scenarios may be considered. “Participatory engineering” (Kaufmann,
Jemelin, Pflieger, & Pattaroni, 2008) is thereby further demonstrated to accentuate the
privileged position of the dominant actors (e.g. transport and planning authorities) vis-à-vis
the dominated ones (e.g. trade unions, civic associations, bottom-up movements) (Epprecht,
von Wirth, Stünzi, & Blumer, 2014). “The harmonious and conflict-avoiding vocabulary”
employed by the sustainable approach “ignores and silences the deeply contested ways
through which the transport system is continuously shaped and transformed, and which
inevitably results in a variety of winning and losing interest groups” (Baeten, 2000, pp. 70–
71).
In other words, unlike the neoclassical and sustainable approaches that focus on regulating
and altering individual mobility-related behaviors, the political-economy approaches strive to
13

understand and challenge the social, political, economic and cultural structures that stand
behind the “unsustainable” ways in which contemporary transport policy and practice is
produced. This allows to raise the question about whose stake and interests are addressed by
particular transport policies and practices. It further helps to reveal a number of “transport
taboos. They include the disparity between the highly unequal environmental contributions
between highly-mobile rich and less-mobile poor, the unwillingness of the highly-mobile to
reduce their level of mobility, and the inefficiency of market-based or technology-based
solutions in terms of facilitating such a reduction. As Gössling & Cohen (2014) demonstrate,
these issues rarely appear in political agendas, as addressing them “would require
transcending neoliberal forms of governance to initiate fundamental sociocultural change”
(p. 198).
Political-economy approaches thereby demonstrate how capitalist relations underpin
transport policy. Critical scholars have exposed how the deeply contradictive marriage
between emission-cutting sustainable ecology and growth-based economics has put forward
a combination of behavioral stimuli, technological innovations, and market-based
instruments that inevitably engender a social lock-in (Gössling & Cohen, 2014). Instead of
critically scrutinizing growth agendas, thereby advanced “ecological version of neo-
liberalism” (Schwanen et al., 2011, p. 999) justifies and mythologizes its “greenwashed”
permutation (Essebo & Baeten, 2012), further leading to conceptualizations of transport as a
territorial asset rather than public service, and thus legitimizing socio-spatially divisive
splintering (Graham & Marvin, 2001) and entrepreneurial (Harvey, 1989) practices.
5. Transport and mobility policy agendas in Brussels
We now turn to the particular case of Brussels to demonstrate in what way these approaches
resonate with how practitioners and policy-makers frame transport and mobility issues, and
how this leads to the production of distinct agendas that center on the identification of
particular problems, visions, and solutions. (see Table 1).
[Table 1 around here]
The neoclassical approach to urban transport is clearly identifiable in a dominant recognition
of traffic congestion as the fundamental mobility-related problem in Brussels, a city
continuously dubbed “the European capital of traffic jams” (Pop, 2010). A clear resonance of
the neoclassical approach, congestion is framed as a question of poor road and parking
“capacity” and system “performance.” It is therefore expected to be addressed by reviewing
14

and rearranging the transport network in a more “intelligent” and “rational” manner—as
reflected by the statement from a member of the regional mobility administration that opens
this article. Transport engineers and economists are envisioned as “experts” primarily
responsible for this task, with no or very little involvement of “non-expert” inhabitants and
passengers. For the proponents of the neoclassically-framed policy agenda, including regional
transport companies that operate in Brussels territory, “participatory procedures are too
3
complicated; although participation is a question of common sense, and you have to include
people from the beginning, […] if you have to do it five times over and over again, it gets too
complicated.” Further understanding of congestion as detrimental to Brussels’ economic
4
growth leads to a legitimization of increasingly entrepreneurial and socio-spatially selective
conceptualizations of transport. They envision mobility as a place-asset for urban
attractiveness and competitiveness, advocating a strong spatial focus on “key corridors and
areas” that include the European district, the high-speed-train Brussels South station, and
5
the railway link to the Brussels International Airport. At the same time, the entrepreneurial
transport agenda emphasizes the necessity to increase mobility opportunities for specific
social groups such as the “creative,” “visitor,” or “middle” class. Accordingly, expanding the
metro network— acclaimed as the most “efficient,” “profitable” and “modern” mode—is
identified to be the ultimate solution for public transport (PT), at the expense of
“insufficiently performant” surface trams and buses. The neoclassical framing is clearly
present in the narrative of one of the regional transport companies, who declare that “the
tram network is limited in terms of its capacity, and once its limits are reached, one must shift
towards metro construction—it’s mathematical.” Furthering the development of car
6
infrastructure and continuously opposing to establishing car tolling or restrictive tax systems,
this agenda aims at “liberating” urban space for a more fluid car circulation. High investment
and maintenance costs of new metro and car infrastructure are expected to be balanced by
entrepreneurial financing tools such as public-private partnerships (PPPs). The neoclassical
framing thus legitimizes the car-dominated status quo, as it exemplified by the local branch of
the liberal party (MR), who contend that “in the current context, the car for a large number of
people remains an indispensable instrument, irreplaceable for professional or personal
reason, whether one lives in the city or the periphery” (MR, 2014, p. 7).
There are three regional public transport companies operating in Brussels: the Flemish Transport Company
3
(Vlaamse Vervoersmaatschappij De Lijn), the Brussels Intercommunal Transport Company (STIB), and the
Walloon Regional Transport Company (Société Régionale Wallonne du Transport – TEC).
Interview with a a member of the board of directors at one of regional public transport operators.
4
Ibid.
5
Interview with a member of the board of directors at one of regional public transport operators.
6
15

The thus established neoclassical agenda is supposedly contested by increasingly more vocal
calls for “sustainable” transport policy and practice. However, the recently-emerged
sustainable concerns to a large extent reverberate the neoclassical formulations centered
upon the problem of car congestion, even if perceived not as a result of inefficient
infrastructure, but as a major consequence of the predominance of car-based mobility
patterns in Belgium. The high share of car use in journeys to and from Brussels amounts to
60%, the motorization rate remains high, and approximately 15% of cars registered in
Belgium are company cars (Beckx & Michiels, 2014). These factors have been held
responsible for the diminishing of the quality of PT service, and, as a result, having a negative
impact on the urban environment. Interviews with local academics, representatives of the
regional government, public transport operators and citizen groups reveal widespread
resonance of the “sustainable” vision in which transport policy incorporates the notions of
poly-centricity and proximity, prioritizing the development of PT and “soft” modes of
transportation (e.g. bicycles). The transition towards a “convivial, attractive [and] livable city
[...] for different people” is to be achieved primarily via “positive” behavioral changes, rather
than through a reorientation of social, economic and political agendas that are primarily
responsible for rendering transport and mobility “unsustainable.”
The sustainable framing that resonates in Brussels policy agendas largely disregards the
socio-economic underpinnings of transport reality. It envisages transport policy-making as a
process that is predominantly de-politicized, consensual and conflict-less, using citizen
participation to lubricate the pathway towards “win-win” mobility projects. Moreover,
similarly to the neoclassical agenda, the sustainable perspective downplays the social costs
that the improvement of transport infrastructure may generate (e.g. gentrification):
“Even if beautification of public space through investment in transport may create real
estate surplus value and may possibly be accompanied by a complete change of
population as a result of rent increase, [one] cannot oppose the return to the city of the
highly-educated and high-salaried population [or] accept the impoverishment of
neighbourhoods which more and more resemble ghettoes.”
7
“Sustainable” solutions proposed for Brussels are further predominantly technological and
display support for nearly all transport modes, as they include the development of the metro
network paired with surface tram and bus infrastructure, pro-pedestrian planning, and
improvements of bicycle facilities. An urban tolling system is discussed to limit the share of
car usage, yet important questions about its potential audience, form and price are rarely
Interview with a mobility expert at one of local French-speaking universities.
7
16

raised and generally framed as technological challenges. Slightly more out-of-the-box
proposals include an aerial metro, urban funicular, urban drones, motorbike taxis and auto
rickshaws. Calls for infrastructural development are accompanied by ideas for “soft” policies.
They embrace a variety of ideas, from providing better information about mobility options
(including creation of regional mobility info-points and “mobility coaching”), and
encouraging companies to outline “mobility plans,” to distributing taxi or bicycle premiums to
discourage the use of company cars, and promoting tele-work or tele-shopping to reduce
mobility needs. However, this plethora of solutions reflects a lack of genuine political will to
favor any specific mobility patterns. Exemplifying a clear resonance of sustainable academic
approaches to transport and mobility, Brussels’ sustainable transport agenda continues
focusing on the immediate results of car dominance, while failing to engage with socio-
economic and political causes behind car-based mobility. As a result, it does not provide a
comprehensive critique of the neoclassical perspective on transport policy and practice. The
conversation between the neoclassical and sustainable agendas only appears to be productive.
Although each of them frames transport and mobility issues in a different way, they both join
their forces to solidify and further de-politicize the transport agenda, limiting the horizon of
local academics and policy-makers alike.
The thus locally assembled neoclassical-sustainable orthodoxy, upon which the transport
status quo in Brussels rests, has been addressed head-on by a number of political-economic
analyses. According to them, car dominance in Brussels is related to fundamental socio-
economic and spatial inequalities. The continuous political and infrastructural support for
car-based mobility—embodied by the neoclassical framing and ineffectively challenged by
the sustainable agenda—appears to disregard the fact that 35,2% of Brussels’ households that
do not own a car, and 40,9% do not possess a bicycle (K. Lebrun, Hubert, Huynen, De Witte,
& Macharis, 2013). For a large part of Brussels’ population, the dependence on PT thus
appears not as question of choice, but of necessity. The access to mobility is thus socio-
economically uneven, as PT in Brussels “is very expensive and every year the fares are higher,
increasing twice faster than inflation.” The joint pressure from the neoclassical and
8
sustainable agendas for a metro-based development of PT network is further revealed to
produce spatial inequalities. Outside the metro corridors, access to PT remains low, inducing
an ever-increasing amount of transfers, which in turn attracts many passengers back to their
cars. Political-economic reflections further identify car-based mobility as one major factors
facilitating continuous urban sprawl and consequently impoverishing Brussels by narrowing
Interview with a mobility expert at one of local Dutch-speaking citizen associations
8
17

its residential tax base. They denounce entrepreneurial trends in transport that by centering
upon network capacity and profitability call for privatization and liberalization, and thereby
pressurize PT operators to exercise financial cuts and worsen working conditions.
This perspective fully resonates with the political-economic framing of transport and mobility
challenges, and reveals the essentially political character of transport problems that “do not
simply call for technical responses concerning optimization by this or that parameter […], but
equally for mediation and choice which require an essentially political decision” (Macharis,
Dobruszkes, & Hubert, 2014, p. 10). While thus formulated agenda may at times appear quite
fragmented, it further allows to observe the intricate relationship between transport policy
and voting patterns. As explained by local academics,
“mass transport system carries many captive users, i.e. poor people without much
political clout, immigrants, and young people, who do not vote [whereas] the people
who drive cars belong to a broader and on average more elevated socio-economic
spectrum, which doubtless means that they are guaranteed better “access” to their
local elected officials” (Courtois & Dobruszkes, 2008, p. 18).
Passengers and users are thus approached as citizens and political agents that have the right
to partake in a transparent process of creating transport policies and infrastructure, “for
instance by having passenger representatives joining STIB [Brussels Intercommunal
Transport Company] and SNCB [National Railway Company of Belgium] bodies.” Mobility
9
is therefore envisioned as an essential public service and fundamental common good
conditioning one’s access to housing, education, employment, and leisure, rather than being
conceived a market commodity. Instead of proposing singular solutions, the critical agenda
has put forward a holistic, radical alternative to the car-based mobility mediated by metro-
based PT network (L. Lebrun, Carton, & Hubert, 2009). For the local proponents of the
political-economic approach, “surface [PT] should be the priority. In the city where poor
people take public transport and richer people use the car […] [we] would rather have surface
trams, instead of putting public transport underground and leaving the surface for the cars.”
10
This agenda calls for a (i) densification of surface tram network providing direct and
transversal inter-neighborhood connectivity and maximizing socio-spatial access for the
great majority Brussels’ population; (ii) simultaneous substantial reduction of car
infrastructure and introduction of socially-sensitive urban tolling system co-financing PT
development (and possible reduction or deletion of fares).
Interview with a mobility expert at a one of local French-speaking citizen associations.
9
Interview with a mobility expert at a one of local Dutch-speaking citizen associations.
10
18

6. From agendas to circuits of knowledge
While the frames provided by three academic approaches to urban transport and mobility
appear to resonate with the three distinct political agendas in Brussels, their influence on
actual policies differs greatly. In other words, these agendas are inserted into circuits of
knowledge backed by actors and institutions controlling uneven resources. Henceforth, we
look here at the typologies of stakeholders supporting each agenda, in order to identify
specific circuits of knowledge. To do so, we refer to Healey’s metaphor of a triple intellectual,
political and infrastructural fix (Healey, 2013) as a means of delineating how stakeholders’
positions and interests cluster around transport agendas in Brussels.
The intellectual–political–infrastructural fix that shapes transport reality in Brussels along the
neoclassical lines is particularly apparent. The intellectual fix supporting the neoclassical
circuit is largely provided by engineers employed in PT companies and mobility authorities.
While having made virtually no contributions to academic debates, engineers have acted as
“experts” for successive governments since the 1960s, helping to frame a political fix around
metro-based PT network, thereby arguing that public space be liberated for car infrastructure
(Tellier, 2010). This consensus continues to shape contemporary transport policies in Brussels
(Zitouni & Tellier, 2013), and is supported by official programs of the liberal, Christian
democrat and socialist parties alike. They are joined by the technology industry and
employers’ federation (Agoria), the regional chamber of commerce (BECI), and a number of
real estate actors (e.g. Cofinimmo). While BECI claims that “in certain zones 30% of traffic is
related to looking for a parking spot” (Willocx, 2013, p. 10), Agoria points out that mobility
problems “make Brussels less attractive for business location and personnel recruitment [...]
and are often cited by companies (70%) as possible reason to leave [Brussels]”. Reducing car
11
infrastructure is considered detrimental to the Brussels’ “business climate,” as according to
Cofinimmo, “good accessibility by public transport is not sufficient to guarantee that office
spaces will easily find tenants” (STIB, 2012). The regional government shares this perspective,
considering mobility as the main factor behind economic growth. Transport “serves not only
to travel, but to consume.” It constitutes an instrument of urban competitiveness, therefore
12
validating a socio-spatially selective mobility policy framed in the regional sustainable
development plan (Brussels-Capital Region, 2014) and regional mobility plan (Bruxelles
Mobilité, 2011). The latter document frames transport as a primarily technical, “expert-led”
and de-politicized issue. It further combines elements of the engineer-concocted orthodox
intellectual fix with the entrepreneurial consent for risk-prone financing schemes and the
Own communication with a representative of Agoria.
11
Interview with a former member of the Government of the BCR.
12
19

emphasis on international connectivity. Neither Bruxelles Mobilité, nor any of the local PT
operators seem genuinely committed to including the passengers’ perspective in transport-
related decision-making, as no mobility plan or policy report envisions citizen groups as active
partners in the transport debate. Instead, inhabitants are conceptualized merely as passive
users of transport infrastructure:
“We have to be honest: while an effort has to be made to involve citizens [in transport
projects], at some point authorities must assume their responsibility and say, well, we
have heard all your points, we have made some decisions, and now we will act on them,
so once [the project] is realized, and you’re not satisfied, don’t vote for me anymore. […]
But in Brussels citizen opposition is a national sport, and authorities start to back-pedal
as soon as neighborhood groups or shopkeepers organize themselves.”
13
This approach is reflected by public transport operators such as STIB and SNCB, who to an
increasing extent operate within the punctuality-oriented logics of “management contracts”
signed with regional or federal authorities. Consequently, for STIB “the recipe is simple: [as]
the commercial speed [of the metro] is high and can reach up to 30 km/h, its regularity is not
undermined by traffic congestion, [and] the frequency of its circulation is high” (STIB, 2009,
p. 25). Metro development is thus enthusiastically hailed as “utopia that becomes reality.”
14
PT operators further admit that in the time of austerity “a switch from guaranteed access to
basic mobility [towards] a more demand-driven organization of transport offer” should be
15
considered. This logic justifies linking transport infrastructure to land speculation, in the hope
of producing surplus value that could effectively replace public subsidies. The political
consensus that centers on metro as the cornerstone of Brussels’ PT network is mirrored by a
multi-level commitment to continue building car infrastructure. The federal authorities
subsidize the construction of both road tunnels and a new metro line, the latter project having
been jointly prioritized with the regional government. On the municipal level, the City of
Brussels has recently considerably enlarged the pedestrian zone in the historic inner city. At
the same time however, it has reduced the accessibility to this zone by surface PT, and has
promoted the establishment of new privately-owned underground car parks served by an
inner-core ring road.
The dominant neoclassical circuit is seemingly challenged by three fixes recently structured
around a number of “sustainable” ideas for Brussels transport. The local sustainable circuit
Interview with a member of the board of directors at one of regional public transport operators.
13
Ibid.
14
Interview with a member of the board of directors at one of regional public transport operators.
15
20

embraces a variety of academics including mobility experts (Macharis et al., 2010),
sociologists (Hubert, 2008), political scientists (Damay, 2014) and urban planners. They have
together worked towards establishing an intellectual consensus around the identification of
car-based mobility as one of the main culprits behind the decrease of the quality of life in
Brussels. The largely de-politicized banner of “sustainable mobility” is held high by the
regional government. Various authorities have pledged to reduce the share of individual car
usage. While the regional mobility plan (Bruxelles Mobilité, 2011) commits to decrease car
mobility by 20% between 2011 and 2018, the regional sustainable development plan hopes to
halve it by 2040. This objective is to be achieved through generating a modal shift to bicycles,
public transport and walking. Further solidifying the sustainable circuit, various “sustainable”
slogans have united nearly all political parties. Calls for improving the quality and livability of
public space through transport policy have also been voiced by various citizen movements—
e.g. Atelier de recherches et d’actions urbaines (ARAU, 2008), Brusselse Raad voor het
Leefmilieu (BRAL, 2014) and Inter-Environment Bruxelles (IEB)—public transport operators
(STIB, DeLijn), as well as business and commerce representatives (BECI [Willocx, 2013]).
They seem to agree that a “positive” behavioral shift towards different modes of transport
should be stimulated to create a more “mixed,” “creative,” “attractive,” and “shared” urban
space. The transition towards sustainable mobility is often conceived as a de-politicized
process. As a regional government representative puts it, “an “ideological split” between the
left-wing supporters of investments in tram and bus [network], and right-wing supporters of
investment in metro is no longer necessary.” Thus, the neoclassical and sustainable circuits
16
involving academics, administration officials, and activists alike come to an accord, depicting
transport as “an ambitious project in which everyone is going to win,” regardless of whether
17
it involves instrumentalizing citizen participation and silencing the opposition. The resultant
lack of infrastructural fix reflects the tendency among the federal and regional authorities, as
well as the whole spectrum of political parties, to prioritize technological and infrastructural
antidotes instead of social and political solutions. Their vague policy does not privilege any
particular mode, and by merely “responding to existing demand instead of reshaping it,” the
18
car-dominated status quo is sustained, if not reinforced. As a local academic puts it, “we don’t
want to make any choice, and therefore too much space is left for the car.”
19
Interview with a cabinet member of one of the BCR ministries.
16
A website launched by Bruxelles Mobilité to promote the project of converting one of Brussels’ most used bus
17
lines (71) into a tram line. Retrieved from http://www.be71.be/fr/.
Interview with a mobility expert at one of local Dutch-speaking citizen associations.
18
Interview with a mobility expert at one of local French-speaking universities.
19
21

The challenge of demonstrating political choices related to transport in Brussels has been
taken up by intellectuals coming from disciplines as diverse as geography (Courtois &
Dobruszkes, 2008; K. Lebrun & Dobruszkes, 2012), political sciences (Damay, 2014),
sociology (Zitouni & Tellier, 2013), ethnography, and urban planning (Frenay, 2009). This
critical circuit of academics has demonstrated that the current mobility paradigm in Brussels
contributes to fundamental socio-economic and spatial inequalities, as “there are people that
are very mobile, while for others there exist important physical, financial, social and cultural
barriers.” Academics have further recognized the inherently political character of transport
20
strategies, “which should not be reduced to the results of estimations made by transport
experts” (K. Lebrun & Dobruszkes, 2012, p. 12). They have consequently exposed urban
regimes promoting specific transport solutions (Tellier, 2010) and called for a transport policy
providing citizens with the right to access to a variety of transport modes (K. Lebrun et al.,
2013), rather than a “right to mobility” largely interpreted as unconditional “free-for-all”
liberty to own and use a private vehicle. They have further denounced the link between car-
based mobility and urban sprawl impoverishing Brussels. While generating 19% of national
wealth, the tax Brussels receives amounts to only 8.5% of the national wealth (Frenay, 2009).
At the same time, daily commuters from neighboring Wallonia and Flanders, who perform
53% of all jobs offered in Brussels (K. Lebrun, Hubert, Dobruszkes, & Huynen, 2012),
contribute to 40% of car traffic in Brussels (Hubert, Lebrun, Huynen, & Dobruszkes, 2013).
For an urban planner at one of local universities,
this as an aberration […] This means that the majority of those who inhabit
neighborhoods [close] to their workplaces make short journeys with public
transport, but have to pay their travel cards in full. Meanwhile, those who live [...]
outside [Brussels] and therefore don’t pay their taxes to Brussels […], often have
their travel cards fully reimbursed. I find this profoundly unfair. […]. This also means
that Brussels is under-financed.”
21
Some intellectuals have therefore proposed to redistribute funds from (individual) car
transport to PT, for instance via an urban tolling system (Hubert, 2008). However, while these
critiques have been conceptualized within a relatively coherent intellectual fix, they have not
translated into a stable political consensus. This means that key administrative institutions
are absent from the critical circuit. Whereas several citizen groups to a large extent agree with
the intellectual critiques of orthodox and sustainable agendas (L. Lebrun et al., 2009), the
Ibid.
20
Interview with an urban planner at one of local French-speaking universities.
21
22

political parties as well as the regional government have referred to them in very selective
manner, without any infrastructural outcomes.
7. Conclusion
This paper has presented an inquiry into the capacity of transport and mobility studies to fuel
a critical agenda in the policy context of Brussels. Three approaches were understood as
salient classifications to grasp what is at stake in Brussels—neoclassical, sustainable, and
political-economy approaches. Thus qualified, the Brussels’ agenda appears to be dominated
by a dual hegemonic debate between what we label as “neoclassical” and “sustainable”
positions, which are in fact part of the same policy orthodoxy. This ongoing exchange
between proponents of a neoclassical economy-driven approach to urban mobility on the one
hand, and advocates of more socially- and environmentally aware conceptualizations of
transport as a key component of a “good” city on the other hand, appears to leave several key
political issues out of academic discussions. Meanwhile, political-economy inspired calls for
revealing and analyzing these issues in view of transforming a wider spectrum of forces that
contextualize transport reality, operate on the fringe of this dual hegemonic debate. While
various elements of the counter-hegemonic critical perspective on urban transport exist, they
remain fragmented and unable to effectively circulate and crystallize into a field reshaping
transport agendas and policies. This leads to an essentially de-politicized scholarly debate
about urban transport, consequently sustaining discussions around “best practices” attached
to technical, environmental or governance issues, whereas no stable political and
infrastructural fix supports the critical agenda.
The immediate question raised by the case of Brussels concerns the roots of the neoclassical-
sustainable orthodoxy in urban transport: while this sort of inquiry reaches beyond the scope
of this paper, we urgently need to explore the precise causes and modalities of this ideological
dominance. In this paper, we have argued that analyzing the relationship between academic
knowledge and political agendas through instances of frame resonance in circuits of
knowledge is a fruitful way of exploring how knowledge travels across the divide between
scholars and practitioners. An important implication of this perspective is that the “critical”
character of academic knowledge is strongly mediated by its capacity to challenge the
dominant frame held by policy makers. Furthermore, thinking though frame resonance could
inspire a debate about what kind of transport and mobility studies are needed to maintain
their critical edge and emancipatory character (cf. Legacy, 2015). The analysis of the case of
Brussels reveals that that questions emerging from political-economic approaches to
transport and mobility may serve to critically engage with the policy field. Yet, importantly,
23

our argument is not that the critical edge of transport and mobility studies exclusively resides
in qualitative methods married to constructionist or Marxian epistemologies (Kwan &
Schwanen, 2009). On the contrary, critiques can also powerfully draw on acts of strategic
positivism, even though this avenue needs urgent exploration (Wyly, 2009). Therefore, in our
view the critical nature of scholarship depends on the context, together with the types of
policies implemented (or not), and the types of “scientific” arguments that are utilized in
framing policy reality, setting the agenda, and legitimizing decisions and non-decisions. What
is “critical” is not fundamentally bound up with methodological and epistemological
positions, but with its capacity to “decenter” existing policy debates.
This fundamental “situatedness” or provinciality of any critique may help us to start
explaining the general frailty, fragmentation, and fuzziness of translating critical scholarship
into factual critical transport agendas and circuits more universally. As a critique only exists in
respect of an orthodoxy, its capacity to travel tends to be defined by the radius of the
orthodoxy it opposes. This condition highlights several issues concerning the nature of
counter-hegemonic circuits of policy knowledge (Massey, 2011) and opens a new agenda for
research about critical transport policies and practices. On the one hand, it entails expanding
the inquiry into their circulation (Wood, 2014), looking at the motivations and resultant
(in)actions of actors engaged in the critical transport circuit as well as spaces, narratives, and
practices undergirding the process of spinning and mobilizing of alternative transport policy
solutions (McCann, 2011). On the other hand, it highlights the issues of mutation and
morphing of allegedly “critical” policy models as they migrate out of the metropolitan
contexts in which they have been developed, and which often do not offer a fertile ground for
critical thought and praxis (Kębłowski & Van Criekingen, 2014). Therefore, it becomes
evident that if we wish to see the critical agenda materialize in actual policy and practice, we
urgently need to know more about the ethnographies, sociologies and geographies that
undergird the process of their circulation and implementation.
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