What constitutes a ‘successful’ mega transport project?
Mega transport projects typically express the drive to ‘development’ characteristic of modern planning - with all its conflicts and contradictions. The success of these projects cannot be determined by the narrow criteria of the ‘iron triangle’ – delivery of project, on time, on budget and within prior specifications.
The Planning Theory and Practice Interface: ‘What constitutes a “successful” mega transport project?’ clearly illustrates that what emerges from these mega projects are questions not only about what constitutes success but how success criteria should be constituted.
The studies show that the final judgement on the success or failure of a megaproject is dependent on its politico-social context. All the example European projects included in the paper were strongly embedded in a culture of urban and regional planning in which social and economic objectives were present, even if they only became significant during or even after the project was completed.
By contrast, the Australian project ‘failed’ because the story of ‘success’ shifted during the project from the broader environmental objectives to the narrow ‘iron triangle’ criterion of predicted traffic flows and therefore private profits.The questions these case studies leave us with are these: can ‘prior specifications’ be enlarged to include emergent specifications, or even post hoc specifications? How broadly inclusive of social ends can such specifications go? Can there be a more inclusive set of universal criteria formed around the ambition to reconcile economic and social development with environmental conservation: sustainable development?
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