Programme > By author > Gadziński Jędrzej

With suburbanization as dominant trend of urban development, automobile dependency has been continuously on the rise in a number of countries in Europe. This is especially the case in post-socialist countries where this process was time-delayed. But since 1990s and the system transition suburbanization has been characterised by high dynamics same as the motorisation level.

In such circumstances new investments in public transport infrastructure seem to offer a viable alternative to foster environmental friendliness and social inclusion in suburban neighbourhoods. The focus on sustainable transportation in the European policy agenda facilitates the implementation of public transportation projects, but in many cities in Central and Eastern Europe there is still a large and growing gap between the dynamics of suburbanization on the one hand, and improvements in public transportation accessibility on the other. In this context, we would like to address the question of the impacts of public transport accessibility in suburban neighbourhoods in a post-transition context. In particular, we would like to figure what are the effects in terms of travel behaviours (choosing public transportation instead of automobile), and in terms of satisfaction with the quality of the living environment (subjective valuation based on household survey, and analysis of apartment prices as a proxy for residential satisfaction).

Our case study is the Polish city of Poznań (540,000 residents), which has implemented a number of public transportation projects since the 1990s and is currently planning further extensions. We hope that our results might shed some light on the role of public transportation in suburban neighbourhoods in the rapidly suburbanizing post-transition context.