Politics and administration in support of transformation for sustainable mobility: a case study of the municipality Berlin–Pankow

Abstract The local political system with responsibility for transport planning is in the process of adapting to the goal of sustainable mobility. The resulting mobility policies and the associated planning are bringing about changes in structures and processes that involve governance innovations in decision-making, which are the objects of investigation in this case study. The central, mediating role of stakeholders involved in the administrative framework in a goal-oriented planning process that contributes to the implementation of sustainable mobility measures is part of an internal and external impact analysis conducted in the municipality of Pankow, a district in Berlin (Federal Republic of Germany). In an ex-post process evaluation, which included interviews with key stakeholders in the mobility planning process, we identified several planning cases that represent a typical change in mental infrastructures and ways of dealing with conflicts. These individual processes and adaptations in planning enable public administrators to deal with a transformation of the local living conditions by taking people’s mobility needs into account. Political conflicts in planning that occur on a local level and affect people’s behavior are generally circumvented or deferred rather than managed resulting in a transition that is non-transparent and complicating the local implementation of sustainable mobility.