Unlike walking, driving or travelling by train, little has been written about bus travel. But imperialism and capitalism have always been premised on traffic; closely connected to traffic is speed. And both traffic and speed are woven into today’s economic, social, political, even aesthetic and cultural hierarchies; they are linked, ultimately, to power. The evolution of the transport system in Santiago reveals not only the nature of the power relations between bus drivers and passengers, but is also a microcosm of the impact of neo-liberal economic policies.
Wolfang Schivelbusch , The Railway Journey: the industrialization of time and space in the nineteenth century ( Berkeley, University of California Press , 1986).
2.
Juan Parrochia Beguin, Santiago en el tercer cuarto del s. XX. El transporte metro-politano en Chile. Realización del metro y vialidad urbana (Santiago, Universidad de Chile, 1979).
3.
Grant Buday (ed.), Exact Fare Only: good, bad and ugly rides on public transit ( Vancouver, Anvil Press , 2000), pp. 168-169.
4.
Laureen Snider , ‘Crimes against capital: discovering theft of time’ , Social Justice (vol. 28, no. 3, 2001), p. 106 .
5.
Empresa Nacional de Transportes Colectivos, ‘Santiago moderniza su locomoción colectiva’, Revista Chilena de Ingeniería (Vol. III, no. 27, Mayo/Junio, 1948), pp. 26-7.
6.
Paul Virilio , Speed and Politics ( New York, Semiotext(e) , 1986).
7.
Parrochia Beguin, op. cit. and Juan Parrochia Beguin, 6 planes para Santiago (Santiago, Ministerio de Vivienda y Urbanismo, Colegio de Arquitectos, Arquitaller, Editorial Antartica, 1996).
8.
Julián Arturo, ‘El espacio vivido. Territorio y apropiacion en el espacio publico de Bogota’, <http://www.colciencias.gov.co/seiaal/congreso/Ponen13/ARTURO.htm>.
9.
Ibid.
10.
Marc Augé, El viajero subterraáneo, un etnólogo en el metro (Barcelona, Editorial Gedisa, 1998).
11.
John Berger , Photocopies ( New York, Pantheon Books , 1996).
