| 1. |
- Blomkvist, Pär, 1961-, et al.
(författare)
-
Från nyttofordon till frihetsmaskin : Teknisk och institutionell samevolution kring mopeden i Sverige 1952–75
- 2009
-
Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Blomkvist, Pär & Martin Emanuel, From Utility to Freedom: The Co-evolution of Technology and Institutions in the History of the Swedish Moped 1952–75, Division of Industrial Dynamics, Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm (Stockholm 2009) The first of July 1952, the moped was legislatively excluded from existing restrictions for heavier two-wheeled motorized vehicles. A driver/owner of a “bicycle with auxiliary engine” – this was the original denomination of the vehicle – thus needed no registration, driver’s license or insurance, nor pay any vehicle tax. The legislators did, however, postulate some technical requirements. Besides regulation of the engine, the vehicle should be “bicycle-like” and have pedals. It should thus be driven primarily by means of human, not mechanical, power (i.e., it was not supposed to be a lighter version of a motorcycle). In terms of social and economical goals, the state assumed workers to be the primary users, and a utilitarian use rather than one connected to pleasure and spare time. Very quickly, however, the moped lost all resemblance with the ordinary bicycle (except for the pedals). In a new legislation in 1961, the state yielded to the technical development. The moped no longer needed to resemble a bicycle or have pedals. Meanwhile, the moped also became more of a toy for boys – a vehicle for freedom – rather than the useful tool the state had wished for. In fact, we argue that the demands from user groups not foreseen played a crucial role in changing the legal technical requirements of the moped. This report treats the co-evolution, technically and institutionally, of the moped during the period 1952–75. Using a method inspired by evolutionary theory, the moped models released in Sweden in these years are grouped in “families” with distinctive technical features and accompanying presumed uses. For understanding how demands of different user groups can alter the “dominant design” of a technology (Abernathy & Utterback, 1978), the concept pair of technical and functional demand specifications are developed. While dominant design may capture conservative features in technological development, our concepts seem to better capture the dynamics in technical and institutional change – the co-evolution of technology and institutions.
|
|
| 2. |
- Emanuel, Martin, 1977-
(författare)
-
Trafikslag på undantag : Cykeltrafiken i Stockholm 1930-1980
- 2012
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The modal share of bicycle traffic in Stockholm increased from 20 per cent to over 30 per cent during the 1930s, and reached staggering levels during World War Two – peaking at over 70 per cent. Soon after the war, however, the share declined rapidly. In 1950, 1960 and 1970, bicycle traffic accounted for about 30 per cent, then 3 per cent and then less than 1 per cent, respectively, of the total amount of traffic. How should these rapid changes be understood? Why did bicycle use increase before World War Two, even though the bicycle was hardly a carrier of modernity, and then decline so rapidly during the post-war period?This thesis analyses the changing conditions for bicycling in Stockholm in the period 1930–1980. Comparisons with Copenhagen lend contrast and depth to the Stockholm case. The thesis stresses the importance of ideology and power in the management and planning of urban traffic. The purpose is to examine which actors had an influence on urban traffic and how, on the basis of their conceptions of the bicycle, bicyclists and bicycle traffic, those actors shaped the conditions for bicycling. Although the yearning for automobility and “modern” transit alternatives should not be disregarded as important to the rapid decline of bicycling in post-war Stockholm, it is argued that bicycle traffic was marginalised by traffic engineers and urban planners during the modernisation of the city.Given the rapid growth of bicycle traffic before, during and just after the Second World War, bicyclists were taken into consideration by the police, municipal engineers and the bicycle lobby, primarily through short-term measures. In the post-war period, in a context of a booming economy and the increasingly important position of planning, urban and traffic planners seized the initiative in urban traffic matters. Working within a longer time frame and with more extensive encroachments on the built environment to cope with the “demands” of urban traffic, the bicycle was completely absent in their future visions. Their interpretations of the bicycle as an unsafe, local and primarily recreational mode of transportation were materialised in the urban infrastructure, which led to worse conditions for bicyclists and reinforced the conversion to other modes of transport. By promoting certain uses and deterring others – such as carving out a small sphere for bicycle traffic in the suburbs, while making longer journeys to and from the inner city difficult by bicycle – planning and infrastructure provision shaped future traffic and travel practices.From the late 1960s these interpretations were increasingly complemented by more positive ones of the bicycle as a fast, flexible and clean means of transportation. The bicycle lobby and later local politicians pushed for an increased consideration of bicyclists, eventually leading up to the first bicycle plan for Stockholm in 1978. The early bicycle “renaissance” of the 1970s was curbed in the 1980s, however, due to economic recovery as well as design choices feeding the interpretation of bicyclists as a safety problem.
|
|
| 3. |
- Emanuel, Martin, 1977-
(författare)
-
Leisure walking in the original compact city : senses, distinction, and rhythms of the bourgeois promenade
- 2023
-
Ingår i: Mobilities. - : Informa UK Limited. - 1745-0101 .- 1745-011X. ; , s. 1-19
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The ‘compact city’ implies a return to the urban morphology of the nineteenth-century city, one in which most people walked, predominantly for utilitarian purposes. This article, however, details a leisure practice—the bourgeois promenade—as it unfolded in Stockholm. Employing a diverse set of texts and visual sources the article seeks to understand how this genteel urban practice was enabled and performed in the midst of a growing working-class population with which they shared the streets. It suggests that new street lighting and smoother pavements redirected vision from the ground to the people around, opening up for walking practices that foregrounded the visual over other senses—one being the bourgeois promenade. It further highlights the multiple rhythms of the promenade and the upper middle class’ efforts to create hierarchies of walking on city pavements and in urban parks. In sum, the article shows that leisure mobility was central to the very idea of nineteenth century urban life. Meanwhile, its exclusive character cautions against the one-sided imaginaries of strolling and consumption in today’s endeavours to recreate the compact city.
|
|
| 4. |
- Emanuel, Martin, 1977-
(författare)
-
Controlling walking in Stockholm during the inter-war period
- 2021
-
Ingår i: Urban History. - : Cambridge University Press (CUP). - 0963-9268 .- 1469-8706. ; 48:2, s. 248-265
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This article offers an analysis of different approaches to control walking in Stockholm in the inter-war period. Various social actors engaged in controlling pedestrians through legislation, police monitoring, educational campaigns and traffic control technologies. But the police, municipal engineers, local politicians and road user organizations differed in their aspirations to privilege motorists over pedestrians. While the inter-war period saw a shifting balance between pedestrians and motorists in Stockholm, the transition in terms of legitimate use of city streets was incomplete. Moreover, taking pedestrians’ viewpoints into consideration, what many observers and motorists understood as rebellion against traffic rules or simply bad manners, many pedestrians found to be the safest way to cross the street.
|
|
| 5. |
|
|
| 6. |
- Emanuel, Martin, 1977-
(författare)
-
Bicycle Renaissance Cut Short : Bicycle Planning and Appraisal of the Bicycle in Stockholm, 1970–1985
- 2012
-
Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Like in most other European cities, Stockholm experienced a bicycle “renaissance” in the 1970s, after more than two decades of rapidly declining levels of bicycling. However, the renaissance had already abated by the early 1980s, and the present upward trend only began after 1990. This article is the result of on-going inquiries into the longer trends and contingencies in bicycle traffic and planning in Stockholm, focusing on the period 1970–85 and, thus, capturing two turning points in terms of bicycle traffic levels and public and political appraisal of the bicycle. Particularly, the fluctuations of bicycle traffic are considered in relation to urban planning, infrastructure provision, and the changing assessments of the bicycle in light of the 1960s’ predominantly urban environmental debates and the 1970s’ (“green”) environmental debates at the local level in Stockholm. While defined increasingly as a “humane” and environmentally-sensible alternative to the automobile, reassessments of the bicycle in terms of safety and speed proved more important to the (socially) constructed material conditions for using the bicycle. Although bicycle traffic had broad public and political support in the 1970s, design choices made during this decade, based on thrift and the persistence of the car as norm, led to conflicts among different road users—not least between bicyclists and pedestrians—and thus more hesitance towards stimulating bicycle traffic. In the 1980s, bicycle traffic received less policy attention and less funding for infrastructure. The huge labor dispute in Sweden in the spring of 1980 stands out as an important singular event. The resulting standstill of the Stockholm subway and generally deficient public transport (the staff went on strike) made many people turn to and reassess the bicycle as a transport option. However, due to the sudden growth of inexperienced bicyclists, the problems of bicycle traffic attracted much attention—which was similar to what had happened during the Second World War. In sum, bicycling stood out as an asset in environmental terms, but the early “greening” of the bicycle was not enough to overcome the long-standing notion of the bicycle as a safety problem.
|
|
| 7. |
|
|
| 8. |
|
|
| 9. |
- Emanuel, Martin, 1977-
(författare)
-
Pavement publics in late nineteenth-century Stockholm
- 2023
-
Ingår i: Journal of Transport History. - : SAGE Publications. - 0022-5266 .- 1759-3999. ; 44:2, s. 201-232
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This article presents a case study of pavement regulation and usage in nineteenth-century Stockholm, probing how urbanites’ interactions on and access to pavements were contested and negotiated, in the process shaping the publicness of streets. Utilising press coverage, it moves beyond a focus on infrastructure and political discourse, to capture urban dwellers’ perspectives, claims and interactions. The article shows that, in favouring circulation, Stockholm's pavement regulations expelled or made subsistence-driven activities illegitimate. Pavement circulation also secured undisturbed, anonymous walking and the ability to maintain a distanced attitude towards others – to be private while in public. Yet pavements featured as a prominent public space not only because it was ordered and controlled, but because urbanites of all sorts fought for access. Next to allegedly “modern” usages, city pavements remained home to age-old but marginalised street practices, as well as middle-class women who had begun to claim their equal right of use.
|
|
| 10. |
|
|
