Women on the bus: transit experiences in Flagstaff

Corona Alvidrez, Mariana Guillermina (2023) Women on the bus: transit experiences in Flagstaff. Masters thesis, Northern Arizona University.

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Abstract

In 2001, the Mountain Line bus system began operations in Flagstaff, AZ, after voters approved a tax increase for transit funding. This political decision impacted Flagstaff’s historical and geographic movement, embodied experiences, and everyday practices —or “constellations of mobility” (Cresswell, 2010) of older women of color and other groups at the social margins. In the United States, women are the social sector that uses transit the most (Lee et al., 2017). Yet social scientists in Northern Arizona have overlooked the Mountain Line bus as an epistemic space worth attention over two decades. A gap exists in analyzing the bus from a gender perspective. This gap highlights hidden structures of oppression and violence toward older women in urban settings. This study is grounded in a sociological framework combining Marxism, Constructivist Structuralism, and Decolonial Feminism to explore public transportation-related mobility experiences of older women of color in Flagstaff. Participant observations on all Mountain Line routes and semi-structured interviews with four female riders who identify as Hispanic and Navajo, two transit officers, and one driver indicate that older women of color in Flagstaff suffer social exclusion due to the transportation disadvantages they face. This exclusion amplifies the gender data gap on their transit needs, reinforces stigmas imposed on the bus in the United States, and results in a non-universal infrastructure characterized by racist, ageist, and misogynistic social dynamics. In this oppressive context, older women of color develop sophisticated strategies to navigate transit systems in the city, facing time control, infrastructure conditions, and safety burdens that constitute issues that impact their transit experiences.

Item Type:	Thesis (Masters)
Publisher’s Statement:	© Copyright is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the Cline Library, Northern Arizona University. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author.
Keywords:	Bus; Flagstaff; Gender Data Gap; Mountain Line; Older Women of Color; Spatial (Re)Production
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HN Social history and conditions. Social problems. Social reform
NAU Depositing Author Academic Status:	Student
Department/Unit:	Graduate College > Theses and Dissertations College of Social and Behavioral Science > Sociology and Social Work
Date Deposited:	29 Aug 2023 17:51
Last Modified:	29 Aug 2023 17:51
URI:	https://openknowledge.nau.edu/id/eprint/6101

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