Unveiling a Missed Opportunity: Failed Mobility Transition in an Ideal Setting Implications for Building a Green City

The transport sector is one of the biggest drivers of the climate crisis. To transform it, local actors and infrastructure design are central. The German city of Tübingen is a green showcase city of the best kind. An ideal setting to drive the green transformation. But here, of all places, the construction of a tramway was rejected in a citizens' referendum in 2021. Although additionally even all relevant actors (e.g., political parties, various environmental and climate groups/NGOs, university, city administration) were in favour and funding was secured. This requires a great deal of explanation. Therefore, this case-study shifts the focus: Mobility-transition is not seen as technical endeavour, but as an often side-lined discourse-communicative challenge acknowledging the importance of socially embedded narratives. The aims were to explain the rejected referendum by analysing the associated discourses, identifying argumentation patterns, discourse dynamics and coalitions and to analyse argumentative strengths and weaknesses in relation to current research to gain insights into discursive pitfalls and provide support for the success of future local mobility-transition projects. Three sub-questions were raised: (1) Which actors and frame-concepts did shape the discourse and how did it develop? (2) To what extent was the tramway negotiated within the nexus of mobility-transition and (3) were the opponents more convincing in the discourse? A Discourse Network Analysis was combined with a Narrative Analysis based on 140 newspaper articles and an information-brochure. The results show that the discourse was dynamic, polarised and involved various actors. Arguments in favour of the tramway were made within the different mobility-narratives; arguments against it were more likely within the 'non-mobility narrative'. The pro-discourse-coalition provided unintended support for the counter-protest in form of discursive weaknesses, disastrous communication flaws and inadequate consideration of the socio-technical issues. It squandered the opportunity and could not use the ideal starting position for itself. It was argumentatively weaker and made discursive mistakes because, rather than concentrating on the benefits for Tübingen's population, it focussed on global climate control, the advantages for commuters, failed to develop arguments exploiting the potential of the multidimensionality of the mobility transition, told the mobility-transition narrative incompletely, left the field to the opponents and suffered a loss of credibility by supporting the tramway early on and changing course late. Contrarily, the opposing-discourse-coalition unleashed enormous discursive power due to its high level of narrative connectivity and can therefore be considered as more convincing: It highlighted disadvantages for Tübingen’s population and opened up and used discursive lines of conflict, promoted a green alternative and skilfully embedded NIMBY-arguments, avoided attacking the status-quo, argued in line with the current mobility culture and did not form a densely linked chain of arguments. From these findings various recommendations for local actors can be derived regarding convincing communication and narrative strategies to make future local socio-ecological infrastructure projects possible. Empirical discourse-analytical results and narratives proved fruitful for local policy practice and can be crucial for making mobility in cities socio-ecologically sustainable.