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Blog post: Public transport is the first to go

This article by CoMoDe researcher Lela Rekhviashvili was first published on the ifl.blog. Read the originial article here. 

I just returned from Tbilisi and I am to start thinking of how to analyse the fieldwork on urban mobility  I conducted there during October-November 2020 as part of CoMoDe project – but I’m terribly disoriented. In October I came to a city where the municipal government had insisted on sustainable, pedestrian and public transport-oriented policy changes for the past two years. Exactly before my arrival one of the pilot street infrastructural redesign projects had opened. The city mayor, Kakhi Kaladze, stood up to drivers’ outrage on limitations to car mobility by insisting he cannot be a mayor for car-drivers only, indicating that the city had to accommodate for a diversity of urban dwellers’ mobility needs. Continue reading “Blog post: Public transport is the first to go”

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Facebook group “Marshrutka Appreciation Society”

In our public facebook group “Marshrutka Appreciation Society” we not only talk about marshrutkas, but about everything around mobility and (public) transport in the post-Soviet space. This reaches from funny stories which happened in the world of public transport to scientific articles and job offers. Furthermore it provides the opportunity to get connected to other interested people from this field. We are happy to welcome new members!

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PUTSPACE – Public Transport as Public Space in European Cities: Narrating, Experiencing, Contesting

Today we have another tip: the PUTSPACE Project. PUTSPACE – Public Transport as Public Space in European Cities: Narrating, Experiencing, Contesting – aims to humanise transport research by studying diverse narratives, experiences and contestations of public transport, as they have been unfolding in cities across Europe since the late nineteenth century. The project places public transport at the frontline of contesting what is, can be, or should be public in the city. For more information we recommend their website.

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The Marshrutka Project

Check out The Marshrutka Project! This research project, led by CoMoDe researchers Wladimir Sgibnev and Lela Rekhviashvili, dealt with the role of the marshrutka (minibuses) mobility phenomenon in the production of post-Soviet urban spaces, in and beyond Central Asia and the Caucasus. It provided an empirically founded contribution to the larger discussion on post-Soviet transformation, highlighting the bottom-up and everyday emergence of new orders in the fields of economy, morale, urban development and migration.