Night Public Transportation: Between Discourse and Citizen Appropriation

Análisis del Búho nocturno en Jalisco, México

Abstract

The cities of the 21st century are characterized by constant attempts at organization under norms stablished by disciplines such as urban planning, architecture or engineering, which are legitimized through political discourse regarding the ways of inhabiting and transiting the urban spaces. The night is also a temporality and spatiality that has been used to project, at certain times, transportation policies that position cities on the path of development and innovation; however, nighttime is still assumed as something unfathomable, forbidden and unsafe for comprehensive transport and mobility policies. This paper presents an empirical approach to a night public transportation policy that was implemented in 2011 through a qualitative methodology and in-depth interviews with night-time public transportation users and political actors implied at the time. Among the main results a low citizen appropriation was observed, which derives from the lack of consolidation of night-time public transportation policies.