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Walking in Their Shoes: Just and Sustainable Transport Policymaking, Embodiment, and the Policy Adoption Gap (WITS)

There is no absence of policy recommendations that endorse and prescribe means to support a just and sustainable transition in transport systems. Yet, this transition currently falls well short of the speed and magnitude necessary to achieve the transport systems desired before planetary boundaries have been dangerously exceeded1. Some have called this “the implementation gap”2 or more specifically the “policy adoption gap”3. This persistent gap warrants alternative forms of intervention4. Current approaches largely rely upon discursive persuasion, such as through research reporting and policy recommendations that explain what should be done.

WITS instead takes an embodied experiential approach, drawing on a unique interdisciplinary assemblage of theoretical sources. These theories suggest that embodied experience shapes understanding in ways that exceed the knowledge gained and perspectives formed through purely discursive forms of interactions or persuasion. WITS proposes that policymakers who walk, cycle, or take public transit may formulate policy that better supports walking, cycling, or use of public transit, and thus centres on the following research question:

RQ: Do the particular mobility practices of transport policymakers influence their policy formulation, and if so, how? More specifically, does the use of walking, cycling or public transport by policymakers lead to transport policy that better supports these modes?

Out of the 100 “priority questions” distilled from the recent agenda-setting “Horizon Scan” on transport and mobility research in Europe5, question #76 asks: “How can users’ sensory and emotional experiences with different transport technologies and mobility practices better inform efforts to change mobility habits?” The proposed research directly responds to this question.

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