Gerrymandering access: the politics of urban transport in the age of devolution

Gerrymandering refers to the process of establishing electoral district boundaries to intentionally produce partisan bias in election outcomes. In this chapter, I explore the concept of gerrymandering as a strategy for creating multimodal transport systems that enhance accessibility in the era of decentralised planning. I use examples of how private providers and public sector actors delineate districts for services provided by new modes (for example, electric scooters and bike shares) and new types of financing (such as land value capture) to illustrate the inherently political nature and partisan goals of contemporary transportation planning. While gerrymandering may be a strategy for enhancing accessibility outcomes, it also risks reproducing existing inequities and biases in terms of the social and income groups served by new investments. I conclude with some suggestions for how to enhance equitable outcomes.