Browsing by Author "Itälahti, Mikko"

In my master's thesis I will examine the cessation of the Turku Naantali local train service between the years 1955 1972 in relation to Finland's post-war modernization efforts, future images of the 1950's, and value goals. My main argument is that the decline of the Turku Naantali local train traffic was not deterministic, but voluntary development, and the choosing of this path can only be understood in the context of Finland s modernization policy. The post-war break in the European influences, and the corresponding rise of the American Fordist consumerist ideal, were the key factors that formed the 'Zeitgeist' of the first post-war decades. The private car was interpreted as a symbol of (the growth in) wealth and prosperity in the adopted modernization vision, and motorization was deliberately set as a goal for urban and regional planning. Urban spatial restructuring to enable (car)traffic volume growth, became the main task for scientific urban and regional planning that started in the 1950s. It did not accommodate local rail services at all into it's purist vision of hierarchic urban centres and transport system. The local importance of passenger rail and the protests of it s passengers, opposing the reduction of service levels, were also marginalized by the State Railways board of trustees (rautatiehallitus). The actions taken by the urban planning actors and The State Railways clearly manifest political choosing of the future and technocratic exercise of power. My analysis on the community structure and the development of patronage levels shows that the insufficient passenger demand may not be considered as the main cause for the decline of Turku Naantali local rail services. The traditional state-owned railway monopolies have been typically burdened with high fixed costs, so they have often been active in cutting off the less economically productive local rail services, as the competitive position with road transport has intensified. The main reason for the decline of the Turku Naantali local train service were thus the actions taken by the state railways board of trustees, that systematically weakened the competitivity of local rail services, especially the substitution of the off-peak rail service with buses in December 1955. This meant the reduction in service levels below the level of potential passenger demand, which I regard as an expression of monopoly profit-seeking. Restriction of supply is often optimal from the monopoly s transport economic point of view, especially in the case of short-distance local services. The viewpoint of my research point is qualitative and based on critical hermeneutics. I try to understand the actors decision-making processes in their relation to the specific context of the particular time and the future prospects once open for past actors. On the other hand I try to show, that the actualized future could also have been different. The perspective of learning systems , that has become prominent in the social sciences, has stressed importance of knowing the past development paths and unrealized futures, in order to consciously disengage from the undesirable pathways. Social institutions and organizational cultures are not determined by their pathways. Local rail has been widely re-interpreted since the 1970's. Experience from the Helsinki metropolitan area, as well as from elsewhere in Europe, shows that the well-functioning local rail service is an attractive mode of transport for passengers. As the benefits from local rail are mainly realized at the local level, the implementation of such a system, however, invariably requires the initiative of local actors, as well as democratic decision-making structures securing their actual implementation power. In addition, the coordination of planning between it the community structure and rail transport is essential.