Institutional Barriers to Sustainable Urban Transport in Pakistan

This book examines why urban transport in Pakistan is managed only by improving existing roads and building modern road networks, while totally neglecting non-motorized and public transport for the heavily populated and dense Pakistani cities. The author shows that the export of knowledge from the developed to the developing world has resulted in a mismatch of transport policy with local needs for mobility and safety, as well as for ecological sustainability. He develops the concept of path dependence to explore how urban transport solutions in Pakistan have become locked-in over time as a result of past decisions on infrastructure investment, funding priorities, organizational structure, specific techniques, and mental models of international and local institutions. The book identifies institutions, techniques, and discourse fields in path dependence as barriers to sustainable urban transport in Pakistan and suggests building the policy capacity of local institutions for institutional change in Pakistani cities.