Cycling & Society Symposium, Chester, 2 September 2019

1. DECISION MAKERS’ LINES OF
ARGUMENT
WITH RESPECT TO
DEMOCRATISING CYCLING
Katja Leyendecker
Northumbria University, UK
Cycling & Society Symposium
Chester
2 September 2019
1

2. 2

3. The two cities
Map source: opencyclemap.org
Newcastle + Gateshead Bremen
___________________________________________________________________
Population 490,000 550,000
Density person/km 2,000 1,700
Source: Wikipedia
1 %
Tyne & Wear (2011)
3
23 %
Ahrends (2016)

4. Autoethnography
4

5. 5
Autoethnography showed that both cities
• still designed roads for the car
• Bremen: vehicular cycling
• Newcastle: space depoliticised
• cycling activists felt excluded
Leyendecker (forthcoming)
The global hegemony of automobility means that velo-
mobility always operates in the shadow of automobility,
shaped by the hegemonic dominance of car-systems.
Cox (2019:29)

6. 6
Verkehrspolitisches System (jetzt)
INSTITUTIONAL AUTOMOBILITY SOCIAL AUTOMOBILITY
Technical
sphere
Political
sphere
Social
sphere
Personal
sphere
Politics and
democratic
process
Cultural
transformation
Communicate
to connect

7. Autoethnography
7
Decision
makers
Decision
makers
Narrative analysis

8. 88
Interviews – decision makers
Newcastle transport politician
Newcastle transport planner
Bremen transport politician
Bremen transport planner
NEW-POL
BRE-POL
NEW-PLAN
BRE-PLAN

9. 9
Theme 1

10. 10
Theme 1
People do not really
know what they want

11. 11
Theme 1
People do not really
know what they wantWe need to work
with people

12. 12
Theme 1
People do not really
know what they wantWe need to work
with people
People are people

13. 13
Theme 1
People do not really
know what they wantWe need to work
with people
People are peoplePeople do things
for all sorts of
reasons

14. 14
Theme 2

15. 15
Theme 2
I am voted in and
voted out

16. 16
Theme 2
I am voted in and
voted outHow to include
grassroots activism?

17. 17
Theme 2
I am voted in and
voted outHow to include
grassroots activism?I engage and
converse with
citizens

18. 18
Theme 2
I am voted in and
voted outHow to include
grassroots activism?I engage and
converse with
citizens
Continued
exchange
between
elections essential

19. 19
Theme 3

20. 20
Theme 3
Decision making
remains invisible

21. 21
Theme 3
Decision making
remains invisibleStaking hopes for
change on (new
regional) mayor

22. 22
Theme 3
Decision making
remains invisibleStaking hopes for
change on (new
regional) mayorConsensus-
building

23. 23
Theme 3
Decision making
remains invisibleStaking hopes for
change on (new
regional) mayorConsensus-
building
Working with
others and
understanding
others

24. 24
All themes

25. 25
So what?
(Autoethnography showed that) both cities
• still designed roads for the car
• Bremen: vehicular cycling
• Newcastle: space depoliticised
• cycling activists felt excluded
In Bremen citizens are in a much better position to
change the course of action, i.e. reform transport
paradigms, as the democratic process is more prevalent
Newcastle would depend on an autocrat ‘to get things
done’, risky ‘strategy’ - or reform democratic process
AND reform transport paradigms

26. 26
INSTITUTIONAL AUTOMOBILITY SOCIAL AUTOMOBILITY
Technical
sphere
Political
sphere
Social
sphere
Personal
sphere
Politics and
democratic
process
Cultural
transformation
Communicate
to connect
Transport politics now

27. 27
INSTITUTIONAL AUTOMOBILITY SOCIAL AUTOMOBILITY
Technical
sphere
Personal
sphere
Political
sphere
Social
sphere
Politics and
democratic
process
Communicate
to connect
New transport politics?

28. 28
Technical
sphere Socio-
political
sphere Personal
sphere
‘Agora’
New transport politics?

29. 29
Where are we?
[T]he post-political condition is held to be one where
contestation and conflict is supplanted by consensus-
based politics in ways that foreclose all but narrow
debate and contestation around a neoliberal growth
agenda.
Allmendinger & Haughton
(2012:91, my emphasis)

30. 30
Further research
• Shining light on the techno-political pillar
(officers and politicians, esp. transport
engineers’ cultures, technocracy)
• Linking to literatures of direct democracy,
communitarian and anarchist systems
• Understanding different political voices
of/for automobility and velomobility (spectrum:
conservative, liberal, progressive)

31. References
31
Allmendinger, Phil, and Graham Haughton. 2012. ‘Post-Political Spatial Planning in
England: A Crisis of Consensus?’ Transactions of the Institute of British
Geographers 37 (1): 89–103. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-5661.2011.00468.x.
Ahrens, Gerd-Axel. 2016. ‘Sonderauswertung zum Forschungsprojekt „Mobilität in
Städten – SrV 2013“ Städtevergleich’. SrV. Dresden: Technische Universität
Dresden.
Cox, Peter. 2019. Cycling - a Sociology of Velomobility. Changing Mobilities.
Abingdon, UK: Routledge.
Leyendecker, Katja. forthcoming. ‘Women Activists’ Experience of Local Cycling
Politics’. PhD, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Northumbria University.
Tyne & Wear. 2011. ‘Household Travel Survey Data’. Tyne and Wear Joint
Transport Working Group.