Urban Travel and Sustainable Development

Increasing urban car traffic causes congestion, air pollution, and accidents, and creates risks of global warming. This trend is becoming progressively unacceptable to governments of many countries. A number of national and local authorities are now endeavoring to reduce car travel in cities. This publication, covering 20 OECD countries and 132 cities, concludes that sustainable urban development requires strong new policy instruments, a mix of better traffic management, improved land use planning, higher standards and significantly higher charges for using cars. It proposes specific ways to mix these policies and evaluates the potential improvement for pollution and congestion.