ancient cities

flagship metro or light rail projects bring greater
external capital investment. In some cities, however,
bus rapid transport systems (BRTSs) have
been developed as a central part of transport infrastructure.
These BRTSs integrate services, amenities,
computing and information technologies, and
dedicated roadways to produce a fast and frequent
service. Due to the comparatively low up-front
costs, these are most extensive in, but not limited
to, the Global South. The BRTS in Curitiba, Brazil,
is viewed as one of the biggest successes, being used
by around 70 percent of commuters. It makes use
of local minibuses to connect passengers to largercapacity,
high-speed central routes with dedicated
road lanes. Bus companies operate independently
but are regulated and supported by the city. Stops
are fully wheelchair accessible and contain facilities
to allow passengers to purchase tickets, as well as
public telephones and conveniences. BRTSs, however,
require extensive planning, meaning that
transposing certain examples of best practice without
regard to contextual issues can result in poorly
implemented schemes in some cities. The BRTS
currently under development in Delhi has been
heavily criticized during its trial period because of
the ecological damage involved in its construction,
as well as poor planning, which has reduced road
space for car users and which has placed bus stops
between busy lanes of traffic. Broadly, it seems that
city governments often require the autonomy of
those in South America to produce successful bus
rapid transit schemes, something unavailable to
many Asian cities.
The ownership of buses can be indicative of
local government attitudes toward public control
of urban amenities. Bus company ownership varies
from state monopolies to privately owned but publically
regulated services to privately owned enterprises.
Although private ownership might provide
more efficient and effective bus services as lossmaking
routes are dropped, government operation
of buses can reflect the belief that social welfare
requires certain services irrespective of their ability
to make profit and that markets are not always
adequately robust to ensure that suitable bus services
are provided. In a review of the liberalization
of bus services in various cities in the Global North
and South, D. A. C. Manuder and T. C. Mbara
found no overall pattern of better performance
between private and state-owned bus services,
Buses
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suggesting that contextual influences are more
important than ownership. In many Western cities,
buses are privately operated but publicly regulated,
leading to struggles over planning and service integration
that can reveal the power relations between
private and state parties in cities.
Buses and Social Inequalities
Due to their relatively low cost, bus services are
typically used by the urban poor and can often act
as indicators of the inequalities of a city. In many
cities in the United States, passengers are drawn
mainly from the poorer Black communities and are
also predominantly female, typically using buses
for daily shopping or to travel to employment in
central urban areas. Where bus provision is inadequate,
inequalities along gender, ethnic, and class
lines can be increased. This creates a politics of
mobility in which access to and provision of bus
services alter the life opportunities of city residents.
Sikivu Hutchinson explores these issues in Los
Angeles with one of the few extended analyses of
the experiences of bus travel in a Western city. Los
Angeles is famous as a city built around automobility,
with infrastructure developed around freeways
and light rail. As with other cities with such street
design, this lends itself to one-way trips between
central and suburban areas, rather than the triangular
mobility patterns that bus services cater to.
Buses are run by private companies whose services
are not integrated, with return or transfer tickets
not available. This has reduced the mobility of the
urban poor, aiding the decline of downtown in
favor of urban sprawl. Activist groups such as the
Bus Riders Union have argued that this amounts to
racial discrimination, favoring the transport of the
White majority over that of the Latina/o and Black
populations. These divisions in transport provision
have contributed to the fragmentized nature of
postmodern Los Angeles.
Buses in Urban Studies Research
Despite these various roles in urban life, buses
have generally remained absent from urban
researchers’ work, outside of the specialized field
of transport studies. Research into urban transport
has traditionally looked at large infrastructural
projects, such as the development of freeways,