ABSTRACT
The aim of this chapter is to examine how the post-political era of planning has created both binaries and intersections in the reimagining of transport futures and how the latter precipitates a redefinition of democratic transport prioritization. Focusing particularly on the point in the transport planning process when urban transport priorities are identified, this chapter explores how citizens respond to the inherently political, yet not always democratic, aspects of setting transport investment priorities. This relationship is investigated through a single case study of Melbourne, Australia, where a 6-kilometre inner city road tunnel was deemed a ‘done deal’ by elected officials in the lead up to a state election, removing the controversial project from open public scrutiny. Drawing upon ethnographic research and semi-structured interviews with community campaigners opposing the proposed East-West Link road tunnel, this analysis reveals how community-based groups and individual residents alike can evolve beyond NIMBY-focused agitation to garner a spatially dispersed re-politicization of urban transport priorities. While the post-political framing of infrastructure delivery introduces a binary between state interventionist planning and citizen opposition, it is the mobilization of action through the spaces of intersection where new political paradigms for transport planning are created.
