Page 266 - Çevre Şehir İklim İngilizce - Sayı 3

Environmental Sustainability and Cycling as a
Transport Mode: Best Practices

is a need to evaluate the sustainability and transportation sector together,
especially in order to search for the ways to reduce negative impacts on
natural habitats and the environment.
Cycling in urban transport is a type of sustainable mobility that is a part
of public transportation-oriented development, green transportation and
fuel-efficient transportation systems. Cycling, which points to the relationship
between sustainable development and urban transportation, has a positive
impact on ensuring sustainable urban mobility and the three components of
sustainability including the environment, society and the economy (Schafer,
1998). The concept of sustainable transportation can also be defined as the
transportation services that balance transportation capacity, transport and
security needs with accessibility, environmental quality and neighborhood
livability needs; aiming to minimize social and environmental costs. (Jordan
and Thomas, 1997). As another definition, a sustainable urban transportation
system aims to limit emissions and waste within the area’s ability to absorb,
contributes to the use of renewable energy sources and minimizes land use. In
this way, sustainable transportation systems that help to achieve a healthy life
by providing an equal and fair transportation system for people, contribute to
improving the quality of life, while supporting a financially payable, maximum
efficient and vibrant economy (Duncan and Hartman, 1996).
The sustainability in transportation can be associated with uncontrolled
urban expansion and car dependency, especially regarding Türkiye. Due to
the extension of distances to go as a result of unplanned and uncontrolled
development in the macroform of the cities in Türkiye leading to urban
expansion, use of private cars becomes widespread; and this leads to air
pollution as well as the increase in the emissions causing global warming. This
situation also increases the ecological vulnerability of the city and negatively
affects its resilience. Consequently, the definition of main problem especially
in the current sustainability discussions related to urban transportation is, more
accurately, about what we can no longer sustain, rather than determining what
we want to sustain.

2. Unsustainable Urban Transport
In the late 1960s, policymakers tended to reconstruct the areas in the
city center in order to create more space for traffic by building roads and
parking lots. In the early 1970s, many western countries realized the negative
effects of excessive automobile use on cities and human health, and prepared
regulations for cars and other road vehicles to reduce pollutant emissions per
vehicle kilometer and the resulting noise pollution (Wee, 2007). However,
after the 1970s, the use of automobiles increased significantly worldwide.

Year 2 / Issue 3 / January 2023 251