nine - Conflict over public space

Summary

Introduction

Bus Rapid Transit's (BRT) promise for sustainability is more than improving public transit accessibility, it is also that by design BRT dedicates public space for bus and, in some cases, non-motorised users. Shifting space away from personal cars is a radical act that can have impacts beyond benefits for bus operations. It has the potential to reshape urban development away from car-centred cities. However, achieving this potential will result in conflict.

The reality is that transportation requires physical space and in urban areas the amount of space is limited. Decisions have to be made about whose mobility needs or what type of mobility (non-motorised, public transport, personal vehicles) is prioritised in the design, management, and enforcement of street space.

The competition for space generates conflicts, which are both physical and political (Vasconcellos 2001). The conflicts are not always explicit, but there are no neutral decisions. As Vasconcellos (2001, p. 71) notes, ‘Every circulatory space is physically marked by past politics, revealing the dominate interests that shaped them’. The political conflicts can be just as challenging for BRT implementation as the institutional challenges discussed in Section 1 and operational challenges discussed in Section 3 of this book.

How governments and BRT implementers respond to conflicts has substantial impacts on the success of BRT projects and the ability of BRT to significantly reshape cities and contribute to sustainability. This chapter uses four transport projects with dedicated busway components, in cities with a high proportion of non-motorised and/or public transit users, in order to examine how governments respond to conflicts over space and the impact on the outcome of the project.

Theoretical framework

Conflicts over transportation take place within the context of automobility. Automobility is the reliance on private motorised vehicles for mobility, but also a theoretical concept to describe how private car trips have been prioritised and have shaped not only the urban fabric of cities, but people's relationship to time and space (Sheller and Urry 2000). The reliance on cars did not just happen, but is the result of specific political decisions. Mobility is both created by and creates the production and distribution of power; there are struggles over which transport modes are prioritised in terms of resources and space (Cresswell 2010; Henderson 2004).