mass transit

Essays

Planning in the Age of Political Populism: Kolkata’s Tram Debate

Tathagata Chatterji - 10 June 2025

Using the case of Kolkata’s tram system, Tathagata Chatterji shows how two distinct political strategies—populism and...

Reviews

Episodes from the Social Life of the Delhi Metro

Sneha Mandhan - 20 January 2023

What is the impact of a new metro on a large and growing city? As new metros are cropping up across Asia, Rashmi...

Reviews

(Re)Constructing Inequality: Community Development in Public and Private

Claire Dunning - 14 December 2021

Claire Dunning reviews Jeremy R. Levine’s new book, Constructing Community, an ethnographic study of community...

Interviews

In Search of Grand Paris: Pierre Mansat on the Eve of the June 2020 Municipal Elections

Magda Maaoui & Pierre Mansat - 26 June 2020

Magda Maaoui interviews Pierre Mansat, former deputy mayor of Paris and a founding father of “le Grand Paris” (the...

Debates

Covid-19, War, and Working-Class Neighborhoods

Pierre Gilbert & translated by Oliver Waine - 5 June 2020

The residents of France’s working-class neighborhoods, accused of exacerbating the coronavirus pandemic through their...

From the Field

Moving Inside City Limits: The Urban Mobility of Undocumented Youth

Stephen P. Ruszczyk - 4 June 2019

The urban context and public transportation shape how undocumented youths move within cities. In a comparison of New...

From the Field

The Leaderless Urban Social Movement as Problem and Solution

Caio Teixeira - 25 September 2018

Today, with urban uprisings driven by leaderless social movements, the future of the would-be progressive agenda has...

From the Field

Dunkirk as a New “Laboratory” for Free Transit

Henri Briche & Maxime Huré & translated by Oliver Waine - 29 June 2018

From September 2018, the public transport network in Dunkirk, France, will be free of charge for all users. Henri...

Debates

More Affordable Transit Fares

Alexis Perrotta - 26 April 2016

Low-income urban residents often struggle to afford transit fares. Seattle recently established half-fares for poor...

Debates

Streetcars Named Desire

Luc Gwiazdzinski & translated by Oliver Waine - 15 March 2016

Luc Gwiazdzinski provides an original and critical analysis of the changes affecting today’s cities and contemporary...

Debates

A flat-rate travel card for the Paris region: revolution or illusion?

Marie-Hélène Massot & translated by Oliver Waine - 6 November 2015

Fare “dezoning” in the Paris region – a key reform to mark the end of Jean-Paul Huchon’s term as leader of...

Reviews

The Dangers of Security

Médéric Martin-Mazé & translated by Oliver Waine - 22 May 2015

In Against Security, Harvey Molotch highlights – through various examples, including the New York subway, airports,...

From the Field

Social Norms and Resistance on the City Bus

Sofya Aptekar - 5 May 2015

While subways are hailed as the quintessential New York experience, with their own museum, T-shirts, and lore, the...

Essays

Transport as both a function and a facilitator of metropolitan development?

Aurélien Delpirou & translated by Oliver Waine - 12 February 2015

In Paris, Lyon and Marseille, the development of public transport is a central element of the metropolitan projects...

From the Field

In the Paris metro, hell is other people

Luke Haywood & Martin Koning & translated by Oliver Waine - 15 January 2015

In the medical field, it is not unusual for remedies prescribed to combat a particular condition to have undesirable...

From the Field

Coping with crowdedness in mass transportation

Martin Aranguren & Stéphane Tonnelat & translated by Oliver Waine - 26 February 2014

Riding overcrowded metros, tubes or subways with dozens of strangers in varying moods is routinely viewed as a trying...

Essays

Could harmonised working times spell an end to the rush hour?

Emmanuel Munch & translated by Oliver Waine - 12 February 2014

Efforts to coordinate working hours across urban territories have increased in recent years. By exploring the...

Debates

The Negotiated Urbanism of Grand Paris Express

Lara Belkind - 12 June 2013

In the fragmented context of Paris’s metropolitan and regional politics, the Grand Pari(s) design consultation and...

Reviews

Free public transport: from social experiment to political alternative?

Maxime Huré & translated by Oliver Waine - 20 March 2013

In a work combining storytelling and reflection, a local councillor and a philosopher analyse the policy of free...

Debates

The Fantastical Accounts of Grand Paris

Frédéric Léonhardt & translated by Eric Rosencrantz - 28 September 2011

After four years of ongoing debate, the French government’s Grand Paris scheme has spawned a large-scale mass transit...

Debates

Integrating the train into the city: some thoughts from Spain

Luis Santos y Ganges & translated by Eric Rosencrantz - 21 September 2011

Are inner-city railways condemned to form boundaries or barriers within the city? Based on a critique of the...

Debates

Grand Huit, big gamble, big problem

Jean-Pierre Orfeuil & translated by Michael Stokes - 22 December 2010

The secretary of State for the development of Paris and its region, Christian Blanc, left office in July 2010. He...

Planning in the Age of Political Populism: Kolkata’s Tram Debate

Episodes from the Social Life of the Delhi Metro

(Re)Constructing Inequality: Community Development in Public and Private

In Search of Grand Paris: Pierre Mansat on the Eve of the June 2020 Municipal Elections

Covid-19, War, and Working-Class Neighborhoods

Moving Inside City Limits: The Urban Mobility of Undocumented Youth

The Leaderless Urban Social Movement as Problem and Solution

Dunkirk as a New “Laboratory” for Free Transit

More Affordable Transit Fares

Streetcars Named Desire

A flat-rate travel card for the Paris region: revolution or illusion?

The Dangers of Security

Social Norms and Resistance on the City Bus

Transport as both a function and a facilitator of metropolitan development?

In the Paris metro, hell is other people

Coping with crowdedness in mass transportation

Could harmonised working times spell an end to the rush hour?

The Negotiated Urbanism of Grand Paris Express

Free public transport: from social experiment to political alternative?

The Fantastical Accounts of Grand Paris

Integrating the train into the city: some thoughts from Spain

Grand Huit, big gamble, big problem

Series

Featured

Covid-19 Transformed New York’s Destination Food Markets

Moving Inside City Limits: The Urban Mobility of Undocumented Youth

Filming Ethnic Diversity in New York

Looking Inward, Across the Border

The Political Aesthetics of Drag

Disarm the Police

Other resources online

“Our hallway’s big enough to play football in!” The council housing...

Saudi Arabia: How is Mobility Being Transformed in the Oil Kingdom?

Transport for Suburbia: Beyond the Automobile Age (Paul Mees)

Geopolitics and Electric Vehicles: The Rise of Climate Protectionism

One Way to Fight Rising Food Prices: Public Grocery Stores

The Quiet Power of Car-Free Neighborhoods

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