Transportation policy: a neglected social policy domain and aspect of social well-being in social policy/welfare regime research
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Date
2024-04-22
Authors
Harms, Chase
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Abstract
Mobility plays a decidedly central role in the life of virtually every human in our world. Being able to move from one point to another is absolutely critical to meeting our most basic everyday needs. In the modern era, travel for work, school, leisure, and myriad other quotidian activities, including getting groceries, visiting with friends and relatives, and getting to medical appointments, are just a few of the central reasons for routine travel today. This study underscores the importance of transportation and mobility as a core aspect of human well-being, and as such, an important policy domain that should occupy a central position in the world of welfare and welfare state research. However, despite its import, transportation policy has been largely neglected in the research on well-being and welfare states. This is most strikingly evident in the research on welfare state models and typologies. This study focuses on three key dimensions of well-being, (1) inequality, (2) safety, and (3) environment, highlighting the many ways that transportation policy affects our lives, and makes a case for its inclusion as an important policy domain and component of modern welfare states. Employing Gøsta Esping-
Andersen’s widely-embraced welfare state/worlds typology, it examines the character of transportation policy in three cities (Kansas City, MO, US; Stockholm, Sweden; and Luxembourg City, Luxembourg), representing each of his three welfare regimes (liberal, social democratic, and conservative, respectively). It focuses on a range of key indicators of these three dimensions, including fare provision, service availability, pedestrian infrastructure, and ticketing systems for the inequality dimension; programming in infrastructure safety and reduced road access, as well as legislation for driver training and consequences for illegal acts on the road for safety dimension; and provisions of green space, parking and urban access regulations, and environmental regulations on vehicles for the environmental dimension. Its central conclusion is that future discussion and research on welfare states should consider transportation policy as a central social policy domain.
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Keywords
welfare regime, transportation policy, welfare state, well-being