Transport planning and spatial planning: two worlds apart

Both in the academic literature and in planning practice, the lack of integration of the disciplines of spatial planning and transport planning is a regularly recurring topic. Although attempts for more close collaboration have been made in research and in practice, the walls between the two fields seem to be quite solid, and real integration is still far away. For outsiders, this is difficult to understand, because the construction of transport infrastructure has often a severe impact on both the built environment and open space. In addition, accessibility, the pre-eminent object of transport planning activities, is an important driving factor of the spatial development of cities and regions. This chapter, which is based on a selection of topical literature and on the author’s observation of a number of recent developments, explores the background and importance of this duality, starting from the hypothesis that each of both fields identifies with a very different paradigm, and consequently uses another vocabulary. This translates into different educational and research traditions, and ultimately also into separate policy realms within government settings.