Marginal Mobility: Public Transit Infrastructure for Precarious Settlements in Metropolitan Buenos Aires

By

Mario Jezierski Goetz

BA in History
BA in Social Theory and Practice
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, Michigan (2015)

Submitted to the Department of Urban Studies and Planning

in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

Master in City Planning

at the

MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

May 2020

© 2020 Mario Goetz. All Rights Reserved.

The author here by grants to MIT the permission to reproduce and to distribute
publicly paper and electronic copies of the thesis document in whole or in part in
any medium now known or hereafter created.

Author_________________________________________________________________
Department of Urban Studies and Planning
May 20, 2020

Certified by _____________________________________________________________
Professor Bishwapriya Sanyal
Department of Urban Studies and Planning
Thesis Supervisor

Accepted by______________________________________________________________
Ceasar McDowell
Professor of the Practice
Chair, MCP Committee
Department of Urban Studies and Planning
2
 Marginal Mobility: Public Transit Infrastructure for Precarious Settlements in Metropolitan
Buenos Aires

By

Mario Jezierski Goetz

Submitted to the Department of Urban Studies and Planning on May 19, 2020
in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master in City Planning

ABSTRACT

The human right to mobility is a primary, yet underdeveloped factor in the literature and practice
surrounding urban infrastructure development, especially for those living and working outside of
formalized legal, political, and economic arrangements. As harbingers of historical modes of
production and the strain imposed by globalized, stratified urban environments, not only those
living and working on the margins of urban communities, but the very institutional structures
tasked with securing their livelihoods, continue to suffer from fragmentation and isolation.

This work examines two case studies as lenses into the particular ramifications of these powerful
historical currents: the Metrobús Bus Rapid Transit initiative, and the OPISU (Organismo
Provincial de Integración Social y Urbana) informal settlement upgrading project, both of which
converged roughly from 2017 to 2020 in and around the conjoined neighborhoods of Costa
Esperanza, Costa del Lago, and 8 de Mayo. Through semi-structured interviews with officials,
experiential knowledge gained through site visits, and examination of source material from
scholars and practitioners, this thesis reveals how the mode of life in these settlements, as well as
the structures of transit service provision upon which they depend, represent the precarity of
urban development in Buenos Aires.

The responses of Metrobús and OPISU benefitted from renewed governmental efforts to
integrate disparate geographies, jurisdictions, and funding structures, but struggled to overcome
the barriers imposed by siloed foci. Invigorated by internal professionalism, knowledge-bases,
and relationship building which facilitated impressive accomplishments, the failure to recognize
common goals, and the insufficient separated mechanisms to evaluate the social terrain, resulted
in restricted channels of essential knowledge-sharing. To create truly inter-relative institutions
capable of building a platform for a stable, equitable, and sustainable urban landscape,
governments should strive toward integrated Communities of Practice in development projects,
oriented toward the right to mobility as foundational for full citizenship.

Thesis Supervisor: Bishwapriya Sanyal

Title: Ford International Professor of Urban Development, DUSP

3
Foreword
This project represents another step in the development of a personal commitment to research
leading to action, linked intimately with the enigmatic relationships between academics, policy,
implementation, and reflection within urban planning literature. Similar to undergraduate work
piecing together the larger structural forces that restricted public transportation policy in Detroit, a
major factor in the continued segregation and disinvestment in the region, this current project
refuses to ignore the spectrum of interlocking forces which residents of CC8 and similar
communities struggle to overcome each day. Written as the Coronavirus crisis dawned, this project
serves as an appropriate reminder of the social, economic, and political ties which bind our global
system together, requiring an understanding at both intimate and vast social levels in order to create
a stable, sustainable world for us all.

Acknowledgements
Everything I have accomplished academically I owe to my parents. They are my most trusted guides,
fiercest critics, staunchest supporters, and firmest friends. Though I followed my own trails, they
showered my life with the light and promise I needed to progress, and they are a constant reminder
that I am never completely lost. To them and my extended family, which pitched in to provide the
financial and emotional support necessary for this journey, I will be forever grateful.

As the son of professors, I know the dedication and brilliance which the DUSP faculty share with
students, and I am grateful to have spent two years learning from this unparalleled group of scholars
and professionals. Thank you to my academic advisor, Alan Berger, whose advice on my course of
study set my priorities and brought me through. Thank you to my thesis advisor, Bish Sanyal, whose
practicum course in Buenos Aires formed the germination of the relationships and ideas which
became this project. His advice and support gave me the courage to mold what were vague
premonitions just a few months ago, into a scholarly contribution worthy of pride. Thank you to my
thesis reader, Katrin Kaufer, and the CoLab team, who were instrumental in providing the
theoretical grounding which breathed life into my methodology, and were invaluable partners during
my time as a teaching assistant, and as a PAR pupil. Thank you as well to Ezra Glenn, whose City in
Film series was my first experience with the depth and creativity within DUSP, and a major factor in
my decision to apply and attend. I also benefitted from his good work, and that of the
administrators responsible for a vital Rodwin Fund Travel Grant. Thank you as well to the tireless
and invaluable team of administrators such as Ellen Rushman, and staff which run DUSP and MIT,
to those cleaning unused Urban Design Skills Styrofoam and wiping down white-walls for the next
day of workshops. Thank you to the wonderful cohort of students I learned from and collaborated
with during these two years. I am so excited to see what you all will accomplish, and I’m so glad we
became friends!

I am humbled by the time and consideration offered to me by the transportation and OPISU
officials which I interviewed and learned from in the course of this project. Their accomplishments
speak for themselves, and grow from dedication and love. Thank you to Manuela López Menéndez
and Coco Arosena, who devoted essential time and energy to my project, guiding me to the contacts
or information I needed, or through the neighborhoods of CC8, and invaluable contributions to
their communities. Finally, thank you to Emily Choque, who accompanied me through the streets of
Buenos Aires and beyond, guiding me, supporting me, and whose sweetness and joy sustained me. I
hope this project has contributed in some small way to the lives of all involved, and most of all for
the residents and riders of Buenos Aires.

4
Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................................... 6
CHAPTER 1: CONTEXTUALIZING MOBILITY, PRECARITY, AND DEVELOPMENT .......................... 9
WHY TRANSIT AND PRECARIOUS SETTLEMENTS?........................................................................................................................ 9
POLITICAL ECONOMY AND ARGENTINA ..................................................................................................................................... 11
STATE AND POLICY .......................................................................................................................................................................... 15
RESEARCH APPROACHES ................................................................................................................................................................. 18
CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY ......................................................................................................................19
FRAMING ............................................................................................................................................................................................ 19
METHODOLOGY DETAIL ................................................................................................................................................................ 24
CHAPTER 3: HISTORICAL REVIEW AND COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS................................................... 28
HISTORICAL CONTEXT: TRANSIT .................................................................................................................................................. 28
TRANSIT IN THE NEOLIBERAL ERA .............................................................................................................................................. 33
CONTEMPORARY OUTLOOK........................................................................................................................................................... 35
POLICY RESPONSE ............................................................................................................................................................................ 39
BRT EARLY SUCCESS, COMPARISONS, AND EVALUATION........................................................................................................ 40
PROGRESS........................................................................................................................................................................................... 41
REGIONAL EXEMPLARS ................................................................................................................................................................... 43
CHAPTER 4: CASE STUDIES .......................................................................................................................... 44
METROBÚS: FROM CABA TO PROVINCE ..................................................................................................................................... 44
OPISU: SETTLEMENTS AND PRECARIOUS LIFE.......................................................................................................................... 58
CHAPTER 5: VOICES OF PRACTICE IN METROBÚS AND OPISU .......................................................... 69
DIRECT COORDINATION AND COMMON PURPOSE ................................................................................................................... 73
PUBLIC COMMUNICATION AND INFORMATION GATHERING .................................................................................................. 77
URBAN TOTALITY AND NETWORK EFFECTS .............................................................................................................................. 81
COLLABORATIVE BARRIERS ............................................................................................................................................................ 86
ACCOMPLISHMENTS ......................................................................................................................................................................... 91
NEIGHBORHOOD PERSPECTIVES .................................................................................................................................................. 93
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION ................................................................................................................ 97
URBAN FORM AND FUNCTION ..................................................................................................................................................... 100
INTERVIEWS................................................................................................................................................... 103
BIBLIOGRAPHY .............................................................................................................................................. 104

5
Introduction

Despite the growing recognition of both scholarship and urban policy practice generated by
and for marginalized people, modes of research and infrastructure production, though intimately
related, remain siloed. These artificial barriers constrict radical, solution-oriented praxis, while
perpetuating calcified paradigms resulting in the reproduction of the inequalities and atrophied
development. This study seeks to perform an integrative function, supplying productive
relationships between researcher and subject matter where both theory and methods provide fertile
grounds for diverse informative tools, and linking them directly with concrete action. What results
from this deliberate cultivation of a pragmatic research approach is a demonstration of the
possibilities for comprehensive action inherent in the researcher-practitioner continuum (Fainstein
and DeFilippis, 2016), and the effective transfer of embodied knowledge for the benefit of urban
policy and those it is designed to serve.
This study seizes upon the spatial and temporal convergence of two frontiers of urban
development in Buenos Aires, Argentina: infrastructure upgrading projects in the adjoining
neighborhoods of Costa Esperanza, Costa del Lago, and 8 de Mayo (CC8), and expansion of
regional public transit infrastructure, especially Bus Rapid Transit corridors, as the theater for these
unifying themes. Over the course of almost two years of attention to the specific contexts of
development, with the ongoing support of directly-involved policy makers and their networks, this
study traces the stories of two separate, yet inextricably linked projects led by officials from the
Provincial Organization for Social and Urban Integration (Organismo Provincial de Integración
Social y Urbana, OPISU) and the Metrobús BRT project, with special attention to the Ruta 8
project, running a few hundred meters to the South and West of the settlement. With their own
integrative aims, from the work of organizing and information gathering to literal concrete
infrastructure, both initiatives provide invaluable lessons for effective urban policy implementation.
If coordinated and directed with the knowledge gleaned from the evaluation discussed here, a
powerful new understanding of the way to deliver infrastructure that truly promotes the needs of
marginalized communities may result.
Public transit and urban precarity represent two of the most effective conceptual lenses
through which to analyze the causes and effects of urban policy and its immediate relationship with
daily economic, social, and political relationships. These topics center the experiences of the least
fortunate or often neglected members of the urban ecosystem, which represent a significant and

6
growing proportion of urban populations, performing the vital social and economic roles which
maintain the functioning of the city as a whole. Especially for large metropolitan areas such as
Buenos Aires, where public transit services the vast majority of trips for work, consumption, and
social life (EMODO, 2010), and where an already significant and growing proportion of the
population, predominantly at the bottom of the income distribution, live and work in “informal”
housing or economic relationships (Fernandes, 2011), a focus on the “precarity” of transportation
and settlement life means a focus on the essential infrastructures for urban citizens in the broadest
sense. From the wealthiest to the poorest global centers, questions of equity, whether for regional
dispersion, modal funding, or subsidizing ridership, rely on “uncharted” mechanisms to ensure the
interests of disenfranchised riders are served (Aloisi and Johnson, 2018). Undergirded by the
imminent practical applications of lessons gleaned from transit and settlement life, these research
avenues maintain the bridge between academic, policy, and implementation cycles toward true
material benefit for the greatest number.
The terminology for this study endeavors to postulate the phenomenon of “precarity”
instead of the more frequently used, “informality.” Decades of scholarship establish the
counterproductivity of stark distinctive terms, such as a duality between “informal” and “formal.”
Especially in neighborhoods such as Costa Esperanza, despite lack of registered land title, modes of
formality ebb and flow, and the intimate relationships between what many scholars refer to as
separate living or employment relationships, not only interact, but depend on each other in many
cases, representing two typologies of a larger urban paradigm. For the purposes of this study,
“precarity” is preferred where possible, as an improved representation of the absence of stability,
not only for residents of neighborhoods with auto-constructed houses, alternative forms of social
and legal control, and unpaved streets, but of the institutions which order the urban landscape.
Precarity is thus a mode of urban life, punctuated by unstable living arrangements, employment
relationships, and service provision.
Thus, this study’s methodology and subject matter address the core of frustrations that
manifest both academically and in the practical policy-implementation sphere. Where the mental
maps of what constitutes codified scholarship fail to sufficiently capture the interlocking gears of
social and economic formation, our organizational models suffer the same malady, dooming those
devoting their professional and often personal lives to basic urban improvements to limited tools
and subsequently limited impact. Limits even to expansive “accessibility” terms continue to ignore
glaring methodological analysis gaps, and conflicts require mutual understanding to shift institutions

7
(Salvucci, 2014). Worse, where the mechanisms of infrastructure upgrading programs are neglected,
ambiguity leaves space for vulnerable populations to be further defined and acted upon by
extranational and undemocratic bodies, prone to exacerbate precarity through increasingly capricious
practices. Instead of regarding the common experiences held by fellow professionals with rich
relationships and experiential knowledge as outside the research paradigm, their insight must be
brought forth. Understanding their shared experience alongside uninitiated researchers- in the place,
with the people- must find elevation where it is often subsumed in pale efforts to maintain a dry
statistical objectivity, or on the other hand, excavate some hidden emotional gem forged in
typologies of poverty.
Furthermore, a full understanding of the changes, both positive and negative, wrought by
social infrastructure projects must reckon with the powerful historical and political currents which
govern urban conglomerations and the individuals which navigate it. Though it is outside the scope
of this study to contain a full macro-historical approach, it lays a critical foundation for the
developmental trends which define the current moment in Buenos Aires. From this context, the
policy decisions related to the specific foci- public transit and settlement upgrading projects- must
necessarily grow in order to achieve relevance in for both academics and those living with their
respective histories.
Overall, the themes presented in this work crystallize impressions left by urban scholars and
citizens alike. Paramount among the concerns discussed is the interconnected, human basis both of
neighborhood life and transportation infrastructure development. With these concerns in mind, this
study seeks to explore the ideas of precarity, not simply shown as a deficiency in the lives of those
living in peripheral settlements and their claims to mobility, but of the very institutional responses to
ongoing political and economic paradigms which reproduce such precarity.
The question of transit within the larger discussion of precarious urban development
literature deserves special attention, as its conspicuous omission from urban precarity conversations
corresponded to the observed rollout of infrastructure development in and around the Costa
Esperanza neighborhood. Indeed, the absence of a robust discussion of transit efficacy for residents
was the spark which resulted in this project. After more thorough exploration of the policy,
financing, resident engagement, and implementation of the upgrades achieved, attention to
transportation as paramount in the daily lives of residents was eventually recognized, but perhaps at
too late a stage to implicate upon the larger thrust of decisions. Again, the artificial silos between

8
scholarship and institutional responses restricted the ultimate successes of both transit and
settlement upgrading processes, supplying the material about which this study came to fruition.

Chapter 1: Contextualizing Mobility, Precarity, and Development

Why Transit and Precarious Settlements?

As scholarship deepens, increasingly, researchers are forced to recognize the intimate

interaction between urban mobility through transportation and the living environments in
settlements. Grappling with the intimate relationship between transport provision and its impact on
quality of life, especially for the urban poor is not new. Reviewing this particular corner of urban
literature, Pendakur (1997) asserts that:

For poverty alleviation strategies to succeed, provision of safe, low cost and environmentally
sound urban transportation systems is a prerequisite. It is necessary and important that poverty
alleviation strategies fully incorporate all the transport modes used by the poor and accord them appropriate
priority assuring that the poor are not required to pay more of their meager incomes for transport expenditures
(sic). (Pendakur, 1997, pg. 1)

Indeed, some of humanity’s most sanctified attempts to secure an enduring dignity for all gesture at
the “right to freedom of movement,” and correspondingly, “residence within the borders of each
state” (United Nations, 1948). However, despite the attention of theorists at the heart of
international development debates to include the most vulnerable members of our society, there was
a conspicuous hesitance to provide for this movement. Even through paradigms purporting to
secure the “basic needs” of all peoples through development, physical movement of people is
considered only in problematized “migration” terms, and mobility is abstracted to mean raised
standard of living for individuals through income or nations through output growth. As late as thirty
years following the international declaration of certain inalienable global rights, Streeten struggled
over “controversial…economic and social rights” (1981, pg. 188), acknowledging the “ambiguity
between…’material preconditions’ and ‘actual fulfillment.’” In the same stroke, however, these
legitimate “basic needs” are codified as “water and sanitation, nutrition, health services, and shelter,”
and the means for procuring these needs fall to concepts such as economic productivity and
education (Streeten et. al., 1981, pg. 50). Echoes of the absence of transportation and mobility
required to access these and other basic needs continue to reverberate through socioeconomic

9
literature, and filter through policy approaches attempting to guarantee material benefits through
housing and employment, but not the ability to traverse between them.
The American Public Transportation Association cites they myriad functional benefits of
robust public transit service. Transit shows material correlation with improved business and sales
outcomes, as well as pillars of the modern economy, from construction to manufacturing to the
ascendant service economy. Lower transit costs, especially for those in urban peripheries dependent
on transit for long commutes, secures long-term employment, and therefore a basis for prosperity.
Reducing fossil fuel dependency not only helps the planet and local health outcomes, but insulates
countries from the whims of international markets. Reductions in traffic congestion, the length of
trips, and automobile collisions affect quality of life positively for both private and public users alike.
Increasing real estate values are often linked to good transit provision as well, leveraging further
investment in areas which need it. Furthermore, those sectors of the population, such as older adults
and those with physical incapacities, benefit disproportionately, as private transportation may no
longer be an option, and those in the care economy benefit disproportionately as well (APTA, 2007).
There is evident value, naturally, within respective silos. Securing the right to shelter results
in a vast and accessible body of architectural research and development projects focused on the
auto-construction of dwellings or public housing production. Argentina during the post-war period,
joined a host of countries infusing their politics with a “derecho a vivienda” or right to housing,
resulting in massive programs to house the urban poor (Aboy, 2003). Transport, however, remains
driven by the vertiginous sophistication of transportation system modeling advanced in the name of
efficiency. In Argentina, no right to mobility was ever declared, and transit remained the remit of
business logics. Today’s transit models, present in Argentina as well, are only as good as the inputs,
and while improving overall efficiency, often fail to recognize or improve the basic necessities which
inform the decisions poor people must make to survive each day. Habitually framed within the
“accessibility” paradigm, transit is an instrument of production, a driver of “urbanization” and
growth in increasingly systematized space (Kasraian, Maat, and van Wee, 2019). Internally
insufficient in this way, it is through the interactions between research paradigms where action can
be most effectively applied and informed by the structural concepts which govern possibilities for
such action.
What does it mean, therefore, to plan for transportation in areas where streets are unpaved,
and residents lack certain guarantees of participation in legal and political processes, such as land
title? What does it mean to create transit systems which do not conform to basic proxies of distance

10
for accessibility? The confluence of Metrobús and the OPISU project in the periphery of
metropolitan Buenos Aires present a unique opportunity to answer the complex questions plaguing
urban development for those physically and economically cut off from vital aspects of urban life.
Riven with the historical currents which produced this fragmentary urban life, these exceptions must
be understood within the larger political and socioeconomic effects of the systems which produced
them. Only through engagement with our best understandings of the totalities of contemporary life,
does a mature analysis of how to design infrastructure systems spring.

Political Economy and Argentina

Neoliberalism is perhaps one of the more enduring encapsulations of global shifts in

governance and economic organization overt the last half-century. Growing out of the geopolitical
realignment following the end of World War II, and concurrent with the cessation of the vastly
destructive modern period marked by horrific destruction, economic depression, and direct
dominion of imperial powers throughout the globe, Harvey (2005) defines this concept as a “theory
of political economic practices,” proposing that:
Human well-being can be best advanced by liberating individual entrepreneurial freedoms
and skills within an institutional framework characterized by strong property rights, free
markets, and free trade. (Harvey, 2005, pg. 2)

This was a departure from the “embedded liberalism” of deficit-financed investment by

industrialized countries conferring growth benefits which flowed through countries in Latin
America, albeit “unevenly.” In Argentina, for example, this order was leveraged into national
programs for industrialization and infrastructure development, such as “Peronismo,” after the
president who dominated politics from the 1940s through the 1970s in Argentina, producing
massive housing and urban planning programs, and facilitating urbanization (Aboy 2003 and Pirez,
2002). New, globalized institutions, from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), to the World
Bank, were sentinels of a new order (Harvey, 2005), and developed alongside the flowering of
democracies in post-colonial areas, and relative stability by the mid-1970s in Latin America (Castells
and Calderon, 2015).
However, economic growth from import-substitution industrialization strategies dating to
the 1940s was too reliant on service and consumption employment, as this tertiary sector comprised
70 percent of new jobs in Argentina (Olmedo and Murray, 2002). This vulnerability deepened the
effects of global wealth and asset crashes in the 1970s, presenting the first major challenge to this

11
intimately connected global growth regime. From this crisis, a redistribution of political and
economic control to elites occurred. Argentina felt these effects from the late 1970s to early 1980s in
the form of a military dictatorship, implanting structural inequalities as a “feature” of
neoliberalization, which continued to reverberate throughout the region for decades. As Castells and
Calderon (2015, pg. 16-17) recount, the “lost decade” of the 1980s and privatization waves of the
1990s saw skyrocketing poverty and stagnant development, as countries across the global south
entered the information age without the productive or administrative infrastructures to reap its
economic benefits (Castells and Calderon, 2015; Harvey, pg. 104). As societies emerging from
command economies experienced the “shock therapy” policies of neoliberal governance, democratic
governments in Argentina followed international monetary directives, privatizing social services and
social security, and opening the country to foreign capital markets, sealed by pegging the Argentine
Peso (ARS) to the US dollar (Harvey, 2005, pg. 104).
As Polanyi foresaw at the dawn of this new world, as liberal capitalism took hold as the
dominant political and economic arrangement, subjecting all aspects of social and political life to
self-regulating demands of the market created, in Robert Owen’s words, “great and permanent evils”
(Polanyi, 1944, pg. 136). Resting on the concept of “fictitious commodities,” among these land,
labor, and money, the neoliberal fixation with disembedding these essential elements of human
production and organization by packaging them as “goods produced for sale,” would necessarily
“annihilate them” (Polanyi, 1944, pg. 136-7) Accumulation at the top and vast deprivation at the
bottom of the socioeconomic scale was the result of this commodification process, ramifying
through the global economy as the 20th century came to an end. States therefore reoriented to the
conditions amenable to capital- reduced social spending, tax benefits for investors, and downward
pressure on wages (Calderón, 2008, pg. 126), and crucially, a reliance on user fees for essential
services, such as public transit. Unrestricted capital, embodied by global financial institutions, here
confronted the existing restrictions on labor and land, still tightly regulated by the nation-state
(Harvey, 2005, pg. 164, 168).
The condition produced by this gross mismatch between the freedom and hegemony of
internationalized capital and the vulnerability of land and labor entering this market stripped of
institutionalized protections is one of vertigo- a consolidation of political and economic power at the
top, and induced vulnerability for the rest. Working classes are subsumed by the “disposable
worker,” stripped of tenure and left to “scramble aboard the market system either as petty
commodity producers” or “as informal vendors (of things or labor power),” in addition to illicit

12
activities (Harvey, 2005, pg. 168-9, 185). Uprooted and dispersed in this globalized society, the
waves of migration, both national and international, come into focus, alongside the rapid expansion
of the “informal” labor market understood as “irregular work, outside legal sanction, without state
regulation of any sort” (Olmedo and Murray, 2002, pg. 422).
These characteristics were all too evident in Argentina, where flexible labor markets, and
deregulation contributed to job losses in already weak industrial and agricultural sectors (Olmedo
and Murray, 2002). Harvey’s (2005) account of the how the 1990s led to the 2001 collapse in
Argentina is instructive. Though he notes that economic growth averaged 8 percent per year during
the 1990s, this was driven by foreign investment. Limited productive capacity to provide economic
stability, therefore, exposed profound vulnerabilities. Harvey (2005) shows how the “Tequila Crisis,”
set the stage, where the remedy to 18 percent unemployment and a 7.6 percent contraction of GDP
in little over a year involved deepening reliance on foreign capital flows and ballooning debt
burdens. This unsustainable situation came crashing down in September 2001, despite the second-
largest IMF loan in history. Severe contraction of banking activity, and the withholding of further
international support without draconian budget cuts, induced panic and public revolt. Solidarity
committees sprouted alongside piquetero blockages of transportation networks until the election of
the Kirchner administration refused further debt packages, defaulted on $88 billion, ended the
currency peg to the dollar, and restructured payments to end the crisis and set a course for recovery
(Harvey, 2005, pg. 104-106).
This political economic framing allows an understanding of “neodesarrollismo” or new
developmentism (Castells and Calderón, 2015; Katz, 2015). A reaction to the punitive assertion of
neoliberal governance in previous decades, neodesarrollismo was designed to promote growth,
control inflation, and reduce unemployment (Katz, 2015, pg. 255). Echoed through “Kirchnerism”
in Argentina, understood as “socio-political mobilization from the Peronist movement with a
dominant role of the state that took on the multinationals and loosened the grip of financial markets
on Argentina’s economy,” Latin American governments adopted a left orientation, with high levels
of social and infrastructure spending, supported especially by rising external export markets (Castells
and Calderón, 2015, pg. 19). Almost miraculous improvements in key indicators followed this re-
investment on a regional scale, where poverty levels fell from 44% in 1990 to 28% by 2014, and
close to a 10 percent drop in extreme poverty between 2002 and 2014 (Castells and Calderón, 2015,
pg. 15), as well as expanded education, health, and welfare programs such as Bolsa Familia in Brazil
under Lula da Silva (pg. 16).

13
 Argentina’s export-driven economy, largely dependent on soy production, remained
relatively healthy through the 2008 global economic crisis as economic gains rippled through social
spending programs and infrastructure projects. However, warning signs surfaced over the past ten
years, as the slowing growth of new export markets, such as China, weakened exports, and re-
initiated the inflation and debt pressures plaguing Argentina’s economy (Castells and Calderon,
2015; Katz, 2015). The rise of center-right political movements running against the political
patronism of the neodesarrollista model, brought Mauricio Macri to power in Argentina, signaling a
departure from this period, with an
uncertain future ahead as inflation and
debt continues to plague economic
outcomes (Castells and Calderon,
2015; Katz, 2015).
The damage inflicted by such
violent political and economic
dynamics left its mark on the public
and the polity alike. The economic
Visual 1: Argentine Peso (ARS) to US Dollar (USD) Exchange reorganizations imposed since the
Rate from 2011 through 2019. Source:
Markets.BusinessInsider.com. Retrieved May 18, 2020. 1970s in Argentina included political
realignments as well. Pírez (2002) documents how prior to the 1970s, a combination of transit lines,
loose land regulation, and adequate social remuneration programs supported metropolitan
expansion, substantiated by immigration waves reverberating out into the urban periphery creating
the first (including San Martín and Tres de Febrero) and second urban rings of municipalities within
the Province of Buenos Aires. This relative stability, coupled with available space, allowed low-
income people to create “loteos populares,” self-built communities lacking elements of basic
infrastructure. Neoliberal reforms during the dictatorship beginning in the late 1970s ceased
supports for these neighborhoods, and subsequent privatization of services meant that those who
could pay received attention (Pírez, 2002, pg. 147). This engine of regional inequality was accelerated
when in 1994, constitutional reform created the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires (CABA, Ciudad
Autónoma de Buenos Aires). Now, the city had its own autonomous powers, on par with a
province, further complexifying the context of competing regional powers, from relatively powerless
small municipalities in the Province of Buenos Aires, the Province itself, alongside the CABA, and
the seat of the federal government within the limits of the CABA with its own metropolitan interests

14
(Pírez, 2002). This “triple fragmentation” along public vs. private, Province vs. Federal governments,
and tiered municipal governments combined with a fourth factor- the socioeconomic divisions of
the city between northern, richer areas, and western and southern poorer areas, as well as the
increasingly severe juxtaposition between islands of wealthy gated communities and dense pockets
of poverty (Pírez, 2002, pg. 151-157).

State and Policy

Thus, this period created the conditions of fragmentation which underscore the urban
settlements of profound physical, social, and economic precarity, and the unresponsiveness to these
areas by transit systems modeled on fee-for-service. The sharp declines in public confidence in state
institutions in Argentina, and across Latin America are evidence of the crisis of the state’s ability to
achieve “integration, recognition, and social progress” (Calderón, 2008, pg. 124, 129). Castells takes
this further, however, measuring the widening gap between the “space where issues arise (global)
and the space where issues are managed (the nation-sate)” (Castells, 2008, pg. 82). From the species
of crises this space provokes, a crisis of efficiency, of legitimacy, and equity are most appropriate for the
cases discussed in this study, where separate entities from fragmented governance structures seek to
bridge historical chasms of global economic currents. In Castells words, these valiant teams must
rebuild the “public sphere,” or the basic pre-requisites for common governance- creating a “network
for communicating information and points of view" (Castells, 2008, pg. 78, form Habermas, 1996,
pg. 360).
For Veltmeyer, the OPISU and Metrobús projects represent manifestations of “civil
society,” and their capacities for social change manifested through the agency of their strategies and
individuals carrying them out, the structure of their particular institutions, and the historic and
determinative context of the situation in which they operate (Veltmeyer, 2008, pg. 232). Through this
prism, they appear as strange hybrids of the times, in certain ways representing “top-down”
countervailing government reactions to neoliberal gaps in service, and in others species of the
globalized conglomeration of local, national, and global interests forming civil society structures,
from World-Bank funded projects to local municipal infrastructure upgrading. Of special
importance to the methodology of this study, and in reference to the prevailing power of the
political and economic apparatus revealed above as a primary driver of development, Veltmeyer’s
critique of massaging hegemonic language through social service projects in shape of “social capital”

15
creation deserves attention. The de-mobilizing capacity of over-emphasizing the power of
communication mechanisms within disadvantaged communities, and the disrespect for globalized
power this fascination engenders, reminds scholars that while the creation and maintenance of social
bonds is crucial for counter-hegemonic programs, they form only a part of the whole political and
economic analysis necessary to truly secure the livelihoods of marginalized communities.
Perhaps the more problematized and visually striking fulcrum of the two aspects of
development discussed in this report, is the proliferation of human settlements, known as villas in
Buenos Aires, characterized by extra-legal property arrangements, auto-constructed houses and
rights-of-way, and high levels of poverty through underemployment or insecure livelihoods. These
neighborhoods tell a long history of migration within Argentina, and trace shifts in the political and
economic organization of the country- not only the villas themselves, but the response of
government to them. In contrast to Peronist housing, and often full neighborhood construction
programs (Aboy, 2003), the response of the military dictatorship was a brutal form of destruction
and forced relocation (Mitchell, 2015). Recognizing the proliferation of this urban type, comprising
33 percent of all urban residents worldwide in 2012 and rising steeply since 1990 (UN-Habitat,
2013). In Argentina, 2010 census data indicate that of the almost 13 million people living in the
CABA and surrounding Province, close to one million live precariously in 680 distinct settlements
(Mitchell, 2015).
The erosion of 20th century social compacts within nation states provoked responses both at
the global and hyper-local levels. From a human rights perspective, the institutional mechanisms for
guaranteeing these have experienced tectonic shifts. Sassen (2008) documents this globalized rush
toward instability through the destabilization of citizenship. Conferred through national
governments during the 20th century, the formal equality, at least in name, expressed through
citizenship did not necessarily establish the substantive rights of those it protected, but did provide
the concrete avenues by which to enact them. In a globalized, neoliberal world, however, Sassen
argues that the language of human rights may ascend once again to fill voids which the national
polity no longer has the legitimacy nor the resources to guarantee (Sassen, 2003, pg. 245). Though
Sassen’s note is struck with positivity, undergirded by a Weberian return to the medieval city’s
institutional understanding of the citizen, theorists may benefit from 20th century lessons of
migration and aspirations for global domination. Hannah Arendt (1968) illuminates the darker side
of the transition from rights maintained by nation states to those “inalienable” rights supposedly
independent of government enforcement. When perpetrated on a scale far too great for traditional

16
asylum claims, stateless people found themselves floating, without home and therefore social
context. Without any international, let alone non-national law or enforcement mechanism, those
without a citizenship status not only lost certain legal rights, but lost the “community willing and
able to guarantee any rights whatsoever” (Arendt, 1968, pg. 297). Thus, the “loss of a polity itself
expels (them) from human dignity” (Arendt, 1968, pg. 297). Even in the case of a “world
government,” as Arendt anticipates, totalitarian regimes find justification in actions “being good and
useful for the whole in distinction to its parts” (Arendt, 1968, pg. 299).
Thus, scholars and international organizations alike recognize the gargantuan task at hand to
redesign and rebuild. As shown in the fundamental reordering of the “public sphere,” a proliferation
of organizations, tiny and titanic, are writing and working their way toward the reconstitution of the
“civil society” necessary to incorporate such uncomfortable urban forms. In Buenos Aires, Mitchell
(2015) documents hundreds of civil society organizations at work in villas, from the grassroots to the
multinational. As the decades of case study and academic research pile up, Chastain’s (2017) review
of the work of Auyero, McCann, and Fischer, in Cities from Scratch emphasizes Fischer’s claim that:
three major themes dominated scholarly discourse on shantytowns in the postwar
era: the idea of Communist radicalism in the slums, the “culture of poverty” debate,
and the rural–urban divide. While this research gradually helped to dispel
misinformation about the urban poor, Fischer argues that the focus on these urgent
ideological issues created an “enduring intellectual vacuum” (40) that left important
questions about shantytowns’ internal workings and functional ties to the broader
city unexamined. (from Chastain, 2017, pg. 965)

This account reminds those asking questions about the social realities undergirding settlement
development must balance between the fully structuralist critique, denying agency in a macro-
economic world, and the individual or collective responses which govern behavior. Crucially, the
focus on differentiation and cataloguing of the various typologies, geographies, and departures from
the “formal” seen in places like villas often overlook the “functional ties” between residents and
workers throughout today’s city (Chastain, 2017, pg. 965).
Planners and scholars concerned with this sensitive, yet functional view of the collective
project of building a 21st century city, must then construct a sound basis for development, not only
in concrete, but in concept. Building on rights language under the shadow of the military
dictatorship, Oszlak (1983) asserts that a right to the city, to urban space, means a right to “enjoy all
the sociability and opportunities associated around living space and activity” (Author translation, pg.
3). Especially in Latin American cities, he contends, this enjoyment is necessarily limited by

17
“precarious” or “non-existent” service infrastructures. From this lens, the “fight” for public space
coincides with a political battle for public services (Oszlak, 1983) all the more evident as
privatization takes hold and disparate living arrangements calcify into social class structures.

Research Approaches

If, then, the problematization of urban settlements, including those in Buenos Aires,
depends on these characteristics of disintegration- infrastructure, services, stability, and political
rights, scholars and practitioners must then take Pendakur’s (1997) charge of the absolute necessity
of transportation seriously, not only as a service-provision process, but as a plank in a platform for
an integrated city life. The legacy of the neoliberal, dispersed city poses not only a spatial problem
for metropolitan areas such as Buenos Aires, but a social and political problem in turn. Citing
Francois Ascher’s conceptualization, along the lines of LeFebvre, Vaszquez (2013) asserts the
fundamentality of mobility, not only as the immediate mechanism by which to access the markets
which predominate, but also the means by which people can create the cultural, educational, and
family structures of universal value. Not only is transit a “precondition” of other rights in this sense,
it also happens to be how people spend their days, and nights in some cases- a manifestation of the
activity of life. If everything was provided for a human being in one location without the need to
move, people would still feel a compulsion to move, explore, and act. Finally, transportation choices,
and the complex networks they represent, carry real “social, economic, and environmental costs”
(Velazquez, 2013, pg. 4). In this way, questions of mobility are inseparable from the broader life of
the community, consuming and producing resources.
Filtered through the spatial and underlying normative contours of Buenos Aires, then, the
radial, fragmented metropolitan area demands interrogation beyond simple questions of distance
(Liberali and Redondo, 2012, pg. 83 in Velazquez, 2013, pg. 3). The matrices of past decisions
continue to reinforce the “radial-concentric” topography of Buenos Aires, and through this capacity
to regiment services and employment, achieve a hegemonic flavor (Ainstein, 2001, in Velazquez,
2013, pg. 5). The institutional effect on transit provision again follows and reinforces this
fragmentary, layered tendency, governed on multiple jurisdictional levels and responsive to the
whims of the market, even in the context of the reassertion of the state under neodesarrollismo
(Velazquez, 2013, pg. 8).
In the face of these interrogative composites, tethering the philosophical to the geo-spatial to
the ability to earn a living and put food on the table, Centner (2012) challenges researchers not to

18
settle into the formulations of the “post-neoliberal” or “fragmented” city, but to examine closely the
attitudes and relationships which people live each day. Through these “microcitizenships,” the
stories of real people navigating these complex structures can serve as essential knowledges not only
of understanding the structures themselves, but transforming them. Moderating between the
language of citizenship and personal accounts, all while endowing actors with political sensibilities
and the power to act within limited spheres (Centner, 2012), it is this generative fabric which this
study seeks to illuminate further. As Watson (2003) explains, however, this is a necessarily fraught
space, requiring both delicacy and mettle. Her “conflicting rationalities” framework calls on
researchers and planners alike to constantly question their own received knowledges even as they
probe subject communities and structural political and economic factors. Those taking this challenge
seriously such as Auyero (2019) and Carolini (2010; 2020) demonstrate how comprehensive
understanding can be formed from the case study and narrative analysis in dialogue with both those
on the reception and provision poles of institutional responses to contemporary urban questions.
Building on this clarion call, scholarship can assume the mantle of resolving the residency and
mobility challenges in Buenos Aires, and rippling across the globe.

Chapter 2: Methodology

Framing

Broadening of the analytical framework for evaluating public transit and infrastructure
responses in and around Costa Esperanza necessarily involves a survey of research approaches
which conform to the strictures of both efficacy and depth. Evaluation of the complexity on the
ground must respect the wide historical, economic, political, and organizational structures without
which analysis would be not only insufficient, but would constrain and delegitimize any potential
action. In order for this desired action to take place, however, methods must embrace available,
concretized tools of narrowing and systematizing the social field. Therefore, in response to the
varied species of knowledge this work demands, as well as the imperative to provide a wide platform
for creative responses, this project adopts a multifaceted fact-finding approach.
The research suite also intentionally foregrounds experiential knowledge and seeks to
amplify the voices of those directly invested in planning responses, including residents themselves
and the professionals who create and implement planning programs. Though backed up by third-
party data analysis and relevant comparative controls, this approach sets a standard for researcher

19
engagement that maximizes often underappreciated research dimensions, specifically time and
relationship building. These two aspects not only allow for more accurate evaluation of response
trajectories and pacing across time, but seek to establish the trust and solidarity necessary to share
difficult truths, as well as to act on those truths as an outcome of the research process. Planners
should recognize that whatever conclusions may surface from study, it is the people and institutions
which must invest in and implement any proposed solution and therefore any pragmatic planning
regime must be tailored to their contexts.
Considering the expanded motivational and practical space this study aims to achieve, it
must first be subjected to the forces of precedent constructed by generations of inquiry. A review of
literature both young and old, yet grounded in the intellectual traditions of social science developed
over the course of a century, reveals a promising nest from which this nascent study may grow.
Most substantial for an understanding of the following analysis is the vigorous debate surrounding
mixed-methods research, and its motivational infrastructure provided by pragmatism.
As understood by one of the earlier articulations of this species of inquiry, William James,
this study strives not necessarily to reject “abstraction… a priori reasons… fixed principles, closed
systems, and pretended absolutes and origins,” recognizing the value and necessity of replicable
modeling and the pursuit of an objective truth, especially given the validity of technical and
engineering knowledge employed by urban transport. However, it does embrace his pragmatist “turn
towards concreteness and adequacy, towards facts, towards action,” and imperative for the centrality
of values in this work, “towards power.” In other words, it seeks not to disregard the nobility of
“the pretense of finality in truth,” (W. James, 1906) but to grow connective tissue around it,
complexifying the questions confronting urban transit planning, and at the same time embedding it
in substantive, value-laden debate to improve its function as essential service provision for the most
vulnerable.
Greenwood and Levin (2007) trace this commitment to inclusive, evolving epistemology
through John Dewey (1927/1991), arguing for democratic participation as a component of
knowledge production itself, and extending through the union between thought and action toward a
clear goal of harvesting the intellectual contributions of the greatest number (Greenwood and Levin,
2007, pg. 60). Though remaining shy of the requirement for a true Participatory Action Research
framework (Greenwood and Levin, 2007), this study adopts a related commitment to value-driven
research toward democratic production, related to the concept of praxis, or research with a
phronetic approach undergirded by questions such as “(1) Where are we going? (2) Is this desirable?

20
(3) What should be done?” (Flyvberg, 2001, pg. 60). Given the impacts of a metropolitan transit
system on millions of people, especially those dependent on such systems as in the case of Buenos
Aires, these questions justifiably apply at all prudent junctures to promote the democratic
production of both knowledge and its implementation.
Barriers to this democratization of research response is further problematized by Appadurai
(2006), whose description of significant swaths of the urban population in globalized cities
approximates the challenges for residents of CC8, deprived of material, legal avenues toward
ownership of knowledge. In such cases, there are calls for a judicious wielding of discourse “as a
violence we do to things” (Foucault, 1972, pg. 229 in Rorty, 1982, pg. 205), in solidarity with those
often most directly impacted who may lack aspects of “choice and agency in their everyday lives as a
result of both their socio-cultural contexts and the decisions that are being made for them”
(Glassman and Patton, 2014, pg. 1355). Assimilating the ideas of Sen, Freire, and Dewey, Glassman
and Patton (2014, pg. 1354) conceive this wielding of discourse through the relative power of those
in research positions, as a salve for Freire’s (1970b) culture of silence regarding inequality of
information. They therefore advocate the orientation of information systems toward valued goals,
including “freedom of choice in everyday living,” not intended to blunt the analytical power of
scientific inquiry, but which will “afford new capabilities” toward “actionable knowledge”
(Glassman and Patton, 2014, 1354).
Following Sen, “the more control a central system (hub) has over dissemination and
interpretation of information, the less likely those within that system’s reach are to consider new
possibilities—or the possibility of new possibilities,” requiring a shift toward conscientization (Freire,
1973, in Glassman and Patton, 2014, pg. 1359). For institutions with internal bureaucratic logics and
highly defined objectives, exemplified to a certain degree by the institutional subjects such as OPISU
and the regional transit agencies, which are often resistant to the perceived “swampy lowland,” or
“muddling through” approach in contrast to their relative comfort with the “highlands” of technical
rationality (Schön, 1983, pg. 43), this pragmatic mode of research opens avenues toward “a virtuous
cycle… in which the capability to participate in determination of local functionings through shared,
informed decision-making leads to greater capabilities” (Glassman and Patton, 2014, 1359). Thus,
the mechanism linking changes in life experience, down to the most inconsequential operations
involved in the research, is revealed as a functional shift in praxis (Glassman and Patton, 2014,
1360).

21
 As Schön (1983) elaborates, there is special efficacy of this type of approach in professional,
institutionalized practices, predicated on degrees of standardization and technically rational methods
focused on problem solving. Introduction of reflection-in-practice can have a powerful and
warranted effect. Allowing space for “problem setting” for those engaged day-to-day in “problem
solving” (Schön, 1983, pg. 40) overcoming the “rigor vs. relevance” paradox by allowing the fluid
interchange between both paradigms, correcting for “overlearning,” and including improvements in
highly standardized instrumental models (Schön, 1983, pp. 47, 61, and 69). Related to Rorty’s
advocacy of the value of “intuitive realism” (1982, pg. xxix) to complement and democratize
knowledge, social science researchers can fashion “descriptions which facilitate prediction and
action” (Rorty, 1982, pg. 197), broadening social ownership of knowledge, informing more
comprehensive and equitable tools and implementation. After all, as Schön (1983, pg. 64) counsels,
the positivist story is replete with the benefits of plumbing the margins, developing the imagination
to test cases outside the standard, received paradigm.
In this way, the pragmatic approach as defined here recognizes the practice of its
methodology as a tool in itself, capable of forging more inclusive, and therefore more
comprehensive instrumentalities incorporated in research collectives resembling Communities of
Practice (Mitchell, Wood, and Young, 2001). Building on Wenger and Snyder (2000, pg. 139, in
Mitchell, Wood, and Young, 2001, pg. 3), these models of “knowledge sharing, learning and
change,” “facilitate both individual and organizational learning” (Mitchell, Wood, and Young, pg. 3-
5). Ranging from highly defined organizations to the most informal networks of mutual interest,
Communities of Practice capitalize on the flow of knowledge in and between those with particular
types of knowledge, emphasizing the existence of the passageway over its direction or destination.
The enrichment of learning is thus not sacrificed to the imperatives of concrete deliverables (Lesser
and Everest, 2001, in Mitchell, Wood, and Young, 2001, pg. 7). Communities such as these seek to
capitalize on the possibility of pre-empting, for example, Thomas Kuhn’s “normal science,”
definitionally constrained to puzzle-solving within established paradigms (Kuhn, 1962, pg. 23).
Echoing Dreyfus’ and Bordieu’s advocacy of broad context and the slippery wisdom of intuition
shared by experts in their particular situations, disregarded or buried insight can produce vital shared
knowledges toward a more enlightened practice (Flyvberg, 2001, pg. 9-19, 38). The pragmatic
approach engendered through this research, therefore, embodies the creation of such a community,
introducing reflective space, valorizing normally suppressed information, and contextualizing the

22
discussion with institutional actors with Costa Esperanza residents in mind, for example, producing
actionable knowledge in both directions along the researcher-subject-beneficiary continuum.
A pragmatic approach, as understood here, must reckon with the very challenge it offers to
the self-contained, traditional paradigms critiques- namely the charge of “workability”. How can the
parallel goals of “shared meanings” and “joint action” and this workability be assessed? (Morgan,
2007, pg. 66-67) Within this vein of “reflective practice,” Feilzer (2010) grounds evaluation in central
questions which acknowledge the “layers” of phenomena:

‘‘what it is for’’ and ‘‘who it is for’’ and ‘‘how do the researchers’’’ values influence
the research… it is these questions that need to be considered by researchers to
make inquiry more than an attempt to ‘‘mirror reality.’’ (Feilzer, 2010, pg. 8)

To address these multi-layered realities, the pragmatic, workable attitude elevates mixed-methods, a
flexible suite of inquiries designed to meet each reality on its own terms (Feilzer, 2010, pg. 8).
The success of this methodological freedom must share the responsibility of shielding
inquiry from the dangers of “incommensurability,” (Morgan, 2007, pg. 67, Small, 2011, pg. 77) or
the failures to “genuinely integrate” largely independent research components (Bryman, 2007, pg. 8).
Instead of the facile “juxtaposition” (Feilzer, 2010, pg. 9) of each research component, therefore,
this research strives to embed the apparently disparate functions of knowledge generation in inter-
relative narratives and personal interactions, to achieve a product “more than the sum of the
individual quantitative and qualitative parts.” (Bryman, 2007, pg. 8) Bonding these competing
interests in the Communities of Practice language, Denscombe (2008) advocates for the productive
alliance between pragmatism’s alliance with mixed methods, though his review stresses these models
have been “suggested rather than demonstrated.” (Denscombe, 2008, pg. 280). Potentially, he
argues, mixed methods through this framework can satisfy even Kuhnian paradigm strictures by
achieving “sufficiently flexible, permeable, and multilayered” conglomerates of research
communities, capable of absorbing changing identities and subject to a “peer pressure” regulatory
apparatus. Within this structure, diverging mixed methods work finds common cause in the “social
nature of knowledge acquisition,” constructing a holistic attitude out of the layered relationships
inherent in research practice. (Denscombe, 2008, pg. 278-279).
Feilzer does, however, provide a concrete attempt at operationalizing such an approach
through the “Crime Scene Study,” where a multilevel sequential mixed design conformed to
Denscombe, mixing methods to “produce a more complete picture, to avoid the biases intrinsic to

23
the use of monomethod design, and as a way of building on, and developing, initial findings”
(Feilzer, 2010, pg. 9). It is this rubric, unified in the Communities of Practice strung together
through the practice of the research method, toward which this study aspires, approximating
Hanson’s (2008, in Feilzer, 2010, pg.13) notion of the “closest possible match of theory and
method,” (Feilzer, 2010, pg. 13) given the set of constraints.
Most closely resembling Small’s (2011, pg. 72-74) discussion of network and sequence
analyses of narrative textual data, with the crossover integration of descriptive statistical analysis and
relevant financial modeling, this study recognizes its place in a literature in its “infancy,” struggling
with the dual challenges of “commensurability and specialization.” Mirroring the subject matter, it
represents a foray into the “stable and the precarious,” layers of ‘‘completeness, order, recurrences
which make possible prediction and control, and singularities, ambiguities, uncertain possibilities,
processes going on to consequences as yet indeterminate,’’ (Dewey, 1925, p. 47, in Feilzer, 2010, pg.
8), wielding the power of the researcher as a tether between the particular validities expressed
through the relationship-driven mixed-method narrative approach.

Methodology Detail

Though information gathering began for the specific aspects of public transit infrastructure
began in earnest during the summer of 2019, the relationships necessary for carrying out the full
methodology, and the familiarity with the people living and working in Costa Esperanza began in
the Fall of 2018 through Professor Sanyal’s practicum course. A preliminary understanding
developed in the course of the class’s background reading and site visit in January 2019, which
resulted in final recommendations for OPISU presented in May 2019. This process allowed a
stimulating discussion regarding the current planning responses by the OPISU team, and established
a basic understanding of the current challenges in the settlement. It also provided a baseline
understanding for follow-ups throughout the spring of 2019 and into the summer with people
intimately engaged in multiple levels of planning.
These baseline conditions facilitated a round of further interviews and site visits in August of
2019 to address an area largely absent from the analysis undertaken by the practicum class- the issue
of public transportation access and its implications on the lives of Costa Esperanza residents. Key
contacts such as Manuela López Menéndez, then Secretary of Transport Works for the national
government of Argentina, as well as OPISU project lead José “Coco” Arosena and his OPISU
colleague Alan Gancberg, created a research community suited to semi-structured interviews with

24
planning professionals through a snowball process. Though interviews with OPISU staff and transit
professionals provided essential information upon which to base insights into the coordinated
transit infrastructure response in Costa Esperanza, investment in these relationships also led to
follow-up site-visits, not only in Costa Esperanza where ride-alongs with Coco both in August 2019
and January 2020 built a much more detailed conception of daily life in the settlement, but also
allowed for analysis of works over the course of a year. The information gathering aspect of this
study through site visits and interviews thus represents a veritable longitudinal presence and
communicative linkage with the neighborhoods in question. Where requested and as necessary, it
omits information gleaned from conventional conversation and encounters not formally established
as interviews for which information may be translated for academic work.
In addition to this more intimate picture of resident life and OPISU response, travel to
Buenos Aires allowed for experiential learning on the transit system in question, specifically along
the Ruta 8 Metrobús extension completed in 2019, passing just a few blocks to the Southwest of
Costa Esperanza and a potentially momentous aspect of infrastructure development for the benefit
of Costa Esperanza residents. The combination of site visit and public transit experience allowed for
visual cataloguing of present conditions and the potential for future planning, that go beyond
available imagery or documentation, lending a wealth of contextual knowledge to form a more
adequate and actionable policy response for residents and transit users.
The historical aspect of ongoing responses must be recognized as well. In addition to the
broader story of the currents of public transportation expansion and precarious settlement response
over the course of preceding decades, the longitudinal perspective offered by research engagement
over the course of a year and a half provides a more precise trajectory for infrastructure responses in
both areas, providing invaluable context for informed conclusions. In this way, not only does a
historical survey of primary, secondary, and tertiary source material allow for a nesting of present
research in the full scope of historical responses and varied motivations, but it further defines a
universe for the possibility in the future, which provide a lens for the profound changes, political
and otherwise, encountered within recent history.
As previously noted, this project placed a concerted focus on cultivating relationships within
the professional planning organizations with direct contact and control over planning responses.
These relationships not only provided access to planning documentation, the close-reading of which
reveals the assumptions and motivations underlying concrete development, but provided a key
forum for self-reflection and organizational mirroring. Often overlooked, the personal relationships

25
and socially-constructed levers of policy implementation require attention to the shared cultures and
knowledge bases upon which planning professionals act. This relationship and prolonged
communication-based research approach not only allowed such professionals to reflect upon their
own assumptions and abilities, but also opened invaluable social pathways between often siloed
organizational bodies, a crucial step toward more effective and iterative institutional approaches
which grasp the full complexity of responses needed. These formal or informal layers of institutional
support may prove a direct and positive result of the research process itself, shaping more
comprehensive planning practices while prioritizing the mental space for caring, dedicated
professionals to maximize their supportive powers among both fellow professionals and those they
serve.
The core original research conducted in this study are first nested in historical context, with a
focus on the major political, economic, and social currents which informed both previous public
transportation policy in Buenos Aires, and the regulation and service provision for precarious
settlements in the region. This context is provided through close reading of primary source material,
where available, in this case treating professional planning documents not only as sources of factual
data, but as documents open to sociological interpretation as indicators of contemporary attitudes
among decision makers. Secondary and tertiary source material, including periodicals and other
short-form media, as well as scholarly analyses which trace broader trends, provide a depth of
perspective, and synthesize a wealth of historical data, to nest the contemporary analysis in a firm
framework.
Growing from this historical basis, the case study structure develops along two major
trajectories, 1) the development of the Ruta 8 Metrobús project, and 2) the implementation of the
OPISU project in Costa Esperanza. Within each individual case, the narrative of events forms the
central pillar, relying on government documents, planning materials, including presentations and
reports furnished by agency staff, as well as secondary periodical or tertiary scholarly material which
link key nodes of the historical web. Reports from oversight agencies or groups, both national and
international, with direct knowledge and influence on each of the projects, such as the World Bank
or the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP), fill out this narrative with
authoritative detail, insider knowledge often unavailable from periodicals, and alternative standards
and metrics, all available within a much tighter time-frame compared to scholarly works.
Detail from a total of nine semi-structured interview sessions form the primary tools of
analysis, some recorded in person or through voice messaging where possible, with documented

26
interviewee consents, whereas the majority are based on written field notes suited to a more
conversational style, providing confirming or problematizing information as part of the narrative.
The main body of work provided by the interviews, however, is elaborated in the analysis, where
they mark or explain relevant information toward confirmation or denial of hypotheses. An added
element of the interview process includes documents or internal materials furnished by interview
subjects for which authorization was received to pass along for research purposes. These materials
increase the validity of the assumptions forwarded in the course of the case study structure, and
allow for a more persuasive claim to firsthand knowledge than those obtained through published
reports or periodical accounts.
The original visual material, was gathered through author photographs on site during the
course two separate visits, or through online applications such as Google Maps or bus route
mapping sites such as Omnilineas. The first photograph trip involved riding the Metrobús Avenida
San Martín and traveling through San Martín and Tres de Febrero to the limit of the Ruta 8
Metrobús, and returning along the corridor. The second trip was made by riding the Mitre branch
train to the José León Suárez station, completing a tour of the Costa Esperanza neighborhood and
surrounding area by car and on foot, as well as driving the stretch of the Ruta 8 Metrobús between
the rotunda and the Camino de Buen Ayre before returning to the CABA by the same train. These
images often provide valuable location data, as well as vivid examples of phenomenon discussed in
both the case narratives and interview analysis, and are therefore dispersed through the cases and
their respective analysis sections in order to provide grounding detail and a more comprehensive and
physical understanding of the assertions made.
Finally, the analysis sections of the cases rely on descriptive statistical data conducted by
governments or agencies. One such study, conducted by researchers through the Inter-American
Development Bank, involves recording the transportation experience and preferences of residents of
the Costa Esperanza, Costa del Lago, and 8 de Mayo neighborhoods. This study is pending
publication, and was approved for use in this project with the consent of its authors. Its insights are
crucial to provide the positivist, quantitative modeling of settlement transit experiences, and also
provides illuminating anonymous personal insights from residents themselves. Other intensive
research publications provide their own secondary analyses of demographic and transportation
statistics, and are thus included in the analysis sections of the case studies deepening the
ramifications of the new knowledge produced.

27
 The full survey of these methods serves to provide multi-sensory, embedded review of the
people and places within which the Metrobús and OPISU projects operated. Conducted primarily
over the course of visits in August 2019 and January 2020, learning from the problems and people
involved became a veritable longitudinal process from Fall 2018 through Spring 2020.

Chapter 3: Historical Review and Comparative Analysis

Historical Context: Transit

Historical analysis enters here as a pragmatic response which allows for this fruitful
interaction between seemingly disparate aspects of urban scholarship. By tracing a history of the
developments in public transit and the proliferation of precarious living situations within the
geographical theatre of Buenos Aires, this study introduces both broader institutional narratives
which set horizons for policy action, and also deepens the personal contexts in which real people set
the narratives which surface through methodologies such as surveys and interviews as detailed later.
It’s flexibility also facilitates links with theoretical models of urban development and the political,
economic, and social currents which allow us to establish underlying forces which drive policy and
resident attitudes alike.
Thus, the following section details a brief introduction to the development of public
transportation and its role in the growth of Gran Buenos Aires, incorporating where appropriate the
shifts in political economy throughout the 20th century. Latent in this analysis, and discussed
afterwards in more concrete terms, the proliferation of precarious settlements and the economic
relationships they represent will grow out of this discussion of transportation, resulting in the
iterative relationship between the two paradigms maturing toward the end of the 20th century and
into our current moment.
The development of public transportation in Buenos Aires since the turn of the 20th Century
is a complex story, marked by the modern challenges faced by global cities. Migration, poverty,
privatization, and multinational companies, alongside profound economic crises all contributed to an
extremely dynamic system, yet one which still requires significant thought and innovation in order to
fulfill the demands of a sustainable, equitable 21st century. Transit is often looked upon as an
essential service, but deserves more serious attention as a guarantor of universal rights. For
Pendakur (The City Fix, November 2009), “there are essentially three very important issues in

28
developing countries: a job, a place to live, and the ability to travel from home to work at a low cost
without causing environmental or other problems for fellow urban residents.”
These words are just as true for cities all across the development spectrum. Homes and jobs
receive deserved attention, but without an adequate path linking the two, their promises ring empty.
Without effective transit, the city ceases to live, and rising transit costs, or related restrictions on
resident mobility, threaten the livelihoods of those which call it home.
Buenos Aires, in the vein of many principle metropolitan areas globally, continues to feel the
effects of growing populations, many of whom stream in from rural areas and neighboring countries
(Rogat et. al., 2009). The fluctuations in political economy over the last few decades have stretched
the extent of urban life as political fissures and privatized public services further fragmented the
landscape (Pirez, 2002). Profound adaptations to transit in Buenos Aires must not only guarantee
the right to mobility to inhabitants, but prepare the way for stable livelihoods for the future. As the
modern city formed, especially since the mid 1880s, new technology, international and internal
government investment, immigration and migration, and political and economic changes have all
shaped shifts in regional transportation. Public transportation flowed in and out of the hands of
international and domestic companies, public and private control, though a constant engine of
expansion, development, and both centralization and fragmented action of the city.
From 1860 to 1880, Buenos Aires was a major destination for immigrants chasing the
promise of its booming agricultural export economy. Railroads arrived from Europe, owned and
operated by mostly English companies, and reached into the surrounding landscape form the city
center, connecting the various growing cities throughout Argentina and funneling growth through
its port city, Buenos Aires. The administrations of Mitre, Sarmiento, y Avellaneda invested in the
infrastructure of the city, envisioning a centralized, preeminent international city emerging as a
powerful force in the world economy (Liernur and Aliata, 2004).
Railway and tram lines, horse-drawn at first, helped bring about this centralization, operating
radially around a central node downtown (Heras, 1994). These preliminary networks assisted the
expanding immigrant neighborhoods, whose families supported the agro-economy and its allies.
Thus, urban transit was a central driver of modern urban economic and geographic growth, and
emphasized a strong urban center through strong connections with private, often international,
investment.
Although interrupted by downturns, such as the economic depression in the mid 1870s, or
diseases plaguing densely-packed neighborhoods, the city continued to expand (Heras, 1994).

29
Modern urban problems, including traffic and poor health, became the focus of urban reformers,
who brought new miracles, such as electrification, water filtration, and sewer systems to the city
(Liernur and Aliata, 2004). During the closing decades of the 19th century, tram companies electrified
their networks, reducing costs for riders and owners alike, and enabling further expansion even
faster. Companies such as the Compañía Anglo Argentina de Tranvías prospered as they developed
the city fully extending their network up until 1904. As it grew, it acquired smaller transit operators,
establishing a centralized, dominant interest in transport provision in the new century (Heras, 1994).
By 1910, Buenos Aires boasted a modern system supporting a strong and vibrant city.
Leadership offered a contract in 1908 to the Compañía Anglo Argentina to provide transit anywhere
in its network for 10 cents ARS, and as low as 5 cents ARS for workers, with plenty of capital to
invest in more lines, clearly demonstrating the reinforced prosperity of high labor demand. Workers
and their families settled further out, especially along northern and western arterials (Heras, 1994).
The maturing metropolis signaled its modernity in 1913, with the construction of the country’s first
subway line (Liernur and Aliata, 2004).
Then came World War I, posing serious challenges to the success of transit companies with
European roots. In the wake of the energy crisis, and contributing economic issues feeding the war,
transit companies tried to raise prices, but government controls prohibited extra costs for already
struggling riders. What followed was a tumultuous period marked as well by the rise of syndicalism
in various economic sectors, including transportation. Spearheaded by the popular anarchist
movement, workers exerted further pressure on international companies, relieved only by the end of
the war. In the following decade, the industrial and infrastructural development policies of Mayor
Noel, increased investment in transportation, returned the city to the growth paradigm enjoyed
previously and sustained a reinvigorated transit sector (Heras, 1994). As in many countries during
the 1920s, this period was known for its modern style, including the flowering of literature,
consumerism, and cultural staples such as the Tango. Transit experienced these adaptations as well,
as the automobile appeared on the streets of Buenos Aires, alongside what would come to be known
as the “colectivos” (Heras, 1994).
Colectivos began as modified taxis, designed to accommodate more people (“Historia del
Colectivo,” No Date). This new mode enjoyed two key advantages- first, unlike the tramways, the
government was not able to regulate them effectively until 1931, lowering costs and facilitating
growth. Second, greater flexibility, not adhering to tracks, allowed for more creativity in route
formation, opening greater access to the periphery and feeding a pulsating consumer culture. Before

30
World War I, the four dominant tram companies controlled 90 percent of transit traffic in the city.
By 1930, this number dropped to 50 percent (Heras, 1994).
These companies still held powerful sway with city leaders and international interests, and
began to demand reforms to blunt colectivo competition. Thus, in the 1930s the Buenos Aires
Transport Corporation was formed (Corporación de Transportes de Buenos Aires), a government-
run corporation tasked with incorporating all urban mass transit modes under a single regulatory
structure but which maintained subcontracts to private companies for their legacy systems. The
public mainly disagreed with this move, viewing it as a strategy to save foreign operators at the
expense of the colectivos. This antipathy contributed to a difficult initial decade for the Corporation,
which almost failed in the early 1940s, drowning in economic shocks and rising nationalist pressure
calling for state takeovers of key economic sectors. Once Perón assumed power, the Corporation
gradually converted to government control (Heras, 1994).
Although the new state transit apparatus attempted to continue construction and maintain
artificially low costs for riders, war, energy crisis, and the resulting debt crippled the system. To
offload costs, the Corporation began selling transit lines back to private companies in the 1950s and
60s, and the proliferation of investment in private automobile infrastructure during this period froze
further mass transit expansion (Heras, 1994). Highways, such as the North Access route (Acceso
Norte), established a new and powerful connection by car throughout the region. Subsidized by
investment in petroleum to support cars, motorized transit began to prevail- including the colectivos
(Auyero and Hobert, 2003). Gradually, tramways and their international owners disappeared, and the
colectivo became the definitive mass transit mode for Buenos Aires (Heras, 1994).
The flexibility and ability of these buses to dance through city, reach the suburbs, and double
back to the center, all for a lower price than the competition, spurred the rapid development of
suburbs, and along with the car, contributed to the fragmentation of the region. In place of
European immigrants from previous expansion periods, migrants from the Argentine interior
journeyed to Buenos Aires, joined by immigrants from neighboring countries. Industrial
employment in the city, subsidized by aggressive government policy, drew newcomers in from a
decimated agricultural periphery. They composed a growing metropolitan periphery, taking
advantage of lower living costs, and benefitting from manageable transit access to central job sites.
The freedom of colectivo companies, owned and operated by Argentines, allowed them to traverse
the city connecting periphery to center, and individual neighborhoods to others, while fixed-route
rail lines remained stuck in old patterns.

31
 The dominance of private or motorized transit must be understood within the larger context
of globalizing pressures and planning aspirations conforming to powerful industry trends. For
example, urban plans during the 1920s, influenced by the City Beautiful movement, forwarded ideas

Visual 2: Expansion of settlement and transit by mode. Source: Plan Director de Transporte, by the Agencia
Metropolitana de Transporte, 2018, pg. 6.

32
of park-lined avenues along coastal edges and for circulation in the city. A decade later, Le
Corbusian radial motorway accesses to the center of the city signified “progress,” and in the 1940s,
these large motorway systems stretched further out to incorporate new modes of travel, such as the
Ezeiza airport (Domínguez Roca, 2005). These radial and arterial highway systems, however, were
not extensive enough for international perspectives. A 1965 UN report on transit in Latin America
warns that further investment in railways and other mass transit technologies would amount to an
“unsolvable impediment to economic development,” advocating a greater proportion of GDP be
invested in highways to catch up with the rest of Latin America (UN; Economic Commission for
Latin America, 1965).
Planning for transit and urban design during this and the following periods, therefore,
represented the prioritization of radial highway systems. Furthermore, this planning regime reified
the class divisions between the north and south of the metropolitan area, as transversal highways,
such as the Camino de Buen Ayre along the border of CC8, were planned as urban ring projects, but
only achieved substantial completion in northern, richer, and western, more middle-class areas
(Domínguez Roca, 2005). Thus, the highway separating CC8 from CEAMSE today was a result of
this dominant planning regime, notably forwarded by quasi-governmental organizations which
controlled surrounding territories, such as CEAMSE.

Transit in the Neoliberal Era

The Buenos Aires metropolitan area entered the final decades of the 20th century already
following powerful currents of privatization and urban fragmentation. Central government debt, and
political and economic crisis, crystallized in the military dictatorship from the late 1970s to early
1980s, as well as war with England over the Malvinas islands and hyperinflation raised government
pressures to a fever pitch. Concurrently, private sector investment, and increasingly international
interests were constructing a new city of business, typified by the “shoppings,” large peripheral malls
for consumers escaping the central city, and more Porteños with cars to support individualized
habits (Gorelik, 2004).
According to certain dominant logics, government was simply unable to fulfill these
proliferating private demands, leading to tranches of privatization during the 1990s, including
remnants of the transit system still controlled by the state. Zegras and Menckhoff (1999, pp. 7-13)
document the “impressive speed” of “aggressive” transit contract concessions during this period, in

33
response to “government fiscal crises and declining service quality.” Government cost reductions,
were achieved through savings on subsidized suburban rail services, especially through drastic labor
reductions (Zegras and Menckhoff, 1999, pg. 13-14). Reforms to concession contracts to the private
operators that now controlled the system were substantially deregulated. All remaining colectivos, as
well as the Subte subway system and the regional train network were transferred to private hands.
Regional planning bodies were contemplated, but only the National Transport Regulation
Commission (Comisión Nacional de Regulación de Transporte, CNRT) became functional
(Gutierrez, 2000; Zegras and Menckhoff, 1999), its authority limited to regulating the market for
transit in terms of state subsidy allocations and fare structures (Velazquez, 2013, pg. 15). Central
government authority maintained loose regulatory powers and responsibility for maintenance, but
not coordinated transit planning, now subject to business decisions among operators (Gutierrez,
2000). The large-scale transition to a private conglomeration of public transit modes was complete.
Thus, the period leading up to the new millennium and the crash of the neoliberal economy
in Argentina was a period of drastic reorganization in the construction and maintenance of the
public transit system in metropolitan Buenos Aires. As Gutierrez’s (2000) comprehensive review
illustrates, the economic and political reorganization of the region corresponded with territorial
expansion, dispersion, and socioeconomic division polarization, where transit development was
dominated by private vehicle infrastructure investment. The debilitating nature of this privatization-
driven growth is clear, as the region’s population grew by 37 percent between 1970 and 1992, but
the number of trips grew by a paltry 3.7 percent- an effective decline in mobility (Gutierrez, 2000).
Demand fell and fares trended to historic highs. Though statistics show an increased mode share for
the railway system, Gutierrez (2000) speculates that this was due to the enhanced control
mechanisms private operators adopted immediately, cutting down on fare evasion and registering
previously uncounted ridership, in addition to increased capital investment in coach capacity. Finally,
not only did control shift almost completely to private hands, but companies concentrated into
larger conglomerates, centralizing private gains among a few powerful companies, and orienting
service toward the most profitable routes at the expense of regional coverage (Gutierrez, 2000).
“Expansion of capital and social exclusion” (Gutierrez, 2000) coincided in this era with the
arrival of international finance on the urban transit scene in Argentina. Initiated in 1997, the World
Bank supplied hundreds of millions of dollars-worth of loans through the Buenos Aires Urban
Transport Project (World Bank, 2017, pg. 3). The original objectives of the project were centered on

34
the road and rail systems, perhaps another factor in mode share growth to newly privatized fixed-
guideway travel including:
(i) support joint private sector–public sector initiatives to improve the service quality
and coverage of mass transit in the AMBA [Área Metropolitana Buenos Aires],
(ii) support the carrying out of the infrastructure improvement obligations assumed by
private concessionaires with respect to the AMBA passenger rail system,
(iii) assist in improving traffic safety and urban transport–related environmental quality
in the AMBA, and
(iv) contribute toward the development of an integrated urban transport (road and rail)
system for the AMBA.
(World Bank, 2017, pg. 3)

Interrupted by delays due to the 2001 economic collapse, the report on the full scope of the
project declared it moderately successful, and indicated special concern with the deficit-financed
transit subsidies mounting during the neodesarrollismo period. This relationship continued through
the first two decades of the 20th century, with World Bank initiatives focused on setting up regional
planning bodies, achieved in 2014 through the Metropolitan Transit Agency (Agencia de Transporte
Metropolitana, ATM), financing for the La Matanza Metrobús project, and planning efforts in other
Argentine cities. A section is also devoted to clarifying that World Bank was absolved of any
responsibility in the fraudulent cases of private concession contract allocations in the wake of the
Once train tragedy (World Bank, 2017, pg. x).

Contemporary Outlook

The result of this history is a sprawling, globalized, fragmented, and unequal city. More than
200 separate colectivo lines circulate through the metropolitan area each day covering great distances
over, swerving, individualized routes. The Subte and its ingrained radial structure, only carries a
fraction of the millions of passengers which depend on the colecitvo, serving more and more
workers feeding the demands of an increasingly unequal service economy, highly distributed
throughout the region. Current service struggles to fulfill the rights and requirements of the full
complement of the population, locking many into cycles of poverty exacerbated by insufficient
transit access and the health, economic, and safety opportunities it secures (Pirez, 2002). Lack of
public transportation persists in the face of rising private transportation, contributing to congestion,
collisions, and environmental damage that chokes the city (Rogat, et. al., 2009).
In the wake of neodesarrollisom, the state has taken a more active role in public transit
provision, with the promise of guaranteed a sustainable future for those who live and work in

35
Buenos Aires, despite persistent programmed legacies of neoliberalism (McCallum, 2019). This
reinvigoration of state control first required a return to simply collecting data. For the first time in
thirty years, the origin and destination studies, such as the INTRUPUBA (2006/2007) and
ENMODO (2009/2010) studies (Velazquez, 2013, pg. 12) reintroduced solid statistical
methodologies that paid attention to the changing landscape of the city and the preferences of the
burgeoning urban population, which were sidelined through the wave of privatization, only
reemerging under the renewed primacy of the state in transportation during the first decade of the
2000s. In parallel to state fragmentation and resulting power contests, beneficiaries of privatization
waves fed cartelized corporate transit operators, which stepped into the void left by the failures of
integrative public transit planning.
The EMODO study was especially comprehensive, reaching 222,000 respondents
throughout the Buenos Aires metropolitan area Área Metropolitana de Buenos Aires, or AMBA),
and crunching these data into a wide range of revealing information clusters and visualizations on
how Buenos Aires moves. Crucially, the methodology states the intention to reach villas and
“difficult access” through publicization over radios, word of mouth, and trying to reach homes in
such areas, though the success of this effort is not measured (ENMODO, pg. 6). Of an estimated 20
million total trips daily, almost half begin and end outside the city, in greater Buenos Aires. This is
significant in light of a finding by Castro and Szenkman (2012, in UNTREF, 2015, pg. 65) that
public subsidies, by 2010 comprising 77 percent of transit contractor income, are distributed at a rate
of only ARS$60 per capita in the province, but ARS$500 per capita in the CABA. Trips within the
CABA itself account for a quarter of all trips, leaving only about 3 million trips making the journey
between the central city and the surrounding area.
The report substantiates the importance of public transit in the metropolitan area, where 43
percent of all trips are on public transit, while only a quarter of trips use private vehicles, exceeded
by over 30 percent non-motorized trips. Of public modes, the colectivo is dominant accounting for
about 40 percent of all trips, whether public, private, or non-motorized. The train, though all lines
converge on the city center, is a primarily regional mode, with most track and trips contained within
the greater Buenos Aires area. An indicator of the degree of dispersion between train routes once
reaching the Province, then, most trips by train begin with another transit mode, besides walking. In
this way, vital train access is regulated by the colectivo in the region as well. The Subte subway
system is wholly in the CABA. Surprisingly, then, only 60 percent of trips by this mode have their
both their origins and destinations contained within the city (EMODO, 2009/10).

36
 Private transit, such as cars, perform a quite contained transit role, as most trips begin and
end within their respective zones. Though rates of car use are about even across the metropolitan
area, the data is heavily skewed towards the top income quintiles. Often overlooked, over 6 million
non-motorized trips were completed each day in the metropolitan area, over 90 percent of which
was on foot, with only 11 percent biking. Non-motorized travel tended to increase as distance from

Visual 3: Breakdown of modes in Metropolitan Buenos Aires. The "colectivo" buses represent 39% of all trips,
while the subway (Subte/premetro), and the train (ferrocarril) represent only about 10% together. Private auto
trips involve almost 20% of trips, but far more striking is the quarter of all trips on foot (a pie). Source:
ENMODO, based on 2009/10 data, pg. 28.
the center of the CABA increased, and was heavily skewed toward lower income quintiles, where
respondents noted they walked primarily to avoid paying transit fares, as well as motives such as
stops located too far away or irregular service. Thus, in Buenos Aires, walkability is a function of
necessity, not of programming and distance, as poorer residents in the periphery are forced to walk
in much higher proportions than in the CABA, where high car ownership coincides with higher
public transit investment, and walkable urban spaces (ENMODO 2009/10).

37
 Visual 4: Coverage of colectivo routes in Buenos Aires in 2006-7, according to the governmental entities in control
of their concession contracts. Those which cross municipal or provincial boundaries are regulated by the higher-
order legal authority. Source: INTRUPUBA, found in Velazquez, 2013, pg. 10.

A significant majority of trips in the AMBA are for work or school, including post-secondary
education. Those dependent on public transportation are more likely to list themselves as workers,
employees, as well as those performing odd jobs and precarious work, who also walk more than
others. Of all types of work, domestic workers are most dependent on public transportation, utilized
on 80 percent of all trips- the rest walked, while only a handful had access to private transit. Women
were also more likely to use the colectivo to get to work, while men and women used the train
evenly, and men were the overwhelming majority of bike users. Overall, though a significant portion
of the AMBA from all economic quintiles use public transportation, the most balanced forms are
the train and the colectivo, while upper quintiles dominate the Subte and private travel, lower
quintiles depend on the colectivo and non-motorized travel. Finally, trips made for health reasons-
perhaps most essential of all, are made via public transit almost 70 percent of the time, the vast
majority by colectivo (ENMODO, 2009/10).

38
 Through the end of the first decade of the 21st century, therefore, the neodesarrollista
apparatus was in the process of clawing back public control of transport in the region. However, the
long and fluctuating history of transportation service in Buenos Aires left the system privatized,
ridership polarized, and governance structures fragmented. Not only did this polarization and
prioritization of existing radial truncation translate to a noted lack of transversal routes, but the
segmentation of administrative competencies led to inefficiencies in planning, carrying through to
inefficiencies in implementation. A veritable alphabet soup of agencies from the national, provincial
and municipal levels existed independently, struggling to create coherent policy. Though attempts at
political unity and a blanket regulatory structure for the region went back a century, no serious
administrative entity had achieved permanence. This instability, as seen in the ENMODO data,
disproportionately impacts those whose livelihoods depend on the reliability of transit, especially
those with deeply precarious living situations. With such profound fragmentation, even the ability to
hold discussion with the administrative apparatus declines, and the very power of citizens to change
the situation loses force (Velazquez, 2013).

Policy Response

The policy responses to these structural inadequacies found voice in fresh planning
initiatives at the federal and central city level. In the CABA, The Sustainable Mobility Plan presented
in 2011, represents this move toward more robust government intervention, laying the way for
various transit interventions. Among these are: 1) Create a Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system, 2)
Extend the Subte, 3) Adopt articulated buses, 4) Create an EcoBici city biking program, and
distribute memberships to people, 5) Expand sidewalks and extend them to areas without pedestrian
infrastructure, and 6) Adopt intelligent transit integrations and signaling systems. Much of the work
to implement this system is underway, or already graces the rights-of-way of the city. Recorded on
the city’s website, the BRT (Metrobús) system now boasts seven completed corridor projects,
following the first along Juan B. Justo and 9 de Julio. More are on the way. Transversal Subte lines,
such as the H Line, have linked multiple radial routes, providing more integrated travel options.
Hundreds of kilometers of bicycle infrastructure were added to streets, accessed by hundreds of
thousands of EcoBici subscribers. Some articulated buses have joined the colectivos along the
avenues, and the city center is undergoing a pedestrian-centered transformation (C40.org, 2013;
BuenosAires.gob.ar, 2020).

39
 Despite this promising start, much work remained to create a truly sustainable and equitable
system. In 2012, an Economist Intelligence Unit report, financed by Siemens measured the
environmental sustainability of cities in Latin America, including ranking transit indicators. From 17
cities and evaluating factors from air quality, waste management, and land use, Buenos Aires ranked
below average- 15th. Only considering transit indicators, however, Buenos Aires was listed around
the average. These measures evaluated the extent of the transport network, transit hierarchization,
and the quantity of private vehicles, alongside the politics of urban transport, and the institutional
controls over traffic management. The density and extent of routes, as well as hierarchization
through the Subte aided in this higher ranking, also considering planning for progress. The quantity
of private vehicles per capita, however, proved a special area of concern, among the highest in Latin
American cities, a prime contributor to air. In contrast, cities such as Bogotá, Colombia and
Curitiba, Brazil, leverage extensive BRT systems toward lower private vehicles per capita, lower
pollution levels, and higher sustainability rankings (Siemens: EIU, 2012).

BRT Early success, Comparisons, and Evaluation

BRT is defined as a system which prioritizes the movement of buses, enabling them to cover
more territory in less time. These systems come in varying shapes and sizes, though the most
efficient include dedicated bus lanes, carrying larger, energy-efficient buses, equipped with enhanced
accessibility for those with physical incapacities. Special attention is paid to the stations as well, and
true BRT has enclosed, safe stations with raised platforms to facilitate boarding as well as timing and
information alert systems and simple payment before boarding the bus (Rogat et. al., 2009).
The main advantage of BRT, which contributes mightily to its adoption across the world, is
its ability to imitate the carrying capacities, and lower maintenance costs and emissions, of fixed-
route transit, such as trains and subways, at a fraction of their cost. The added flexibility, in contrast
to rail transit also makes them more attractive. Megacities dealing with significant fragmentation
pressures, such as Buenos Aires, opt for this flexibility in many cases, providing the benefits of scale,
alongside the flexibility to move through complicated urban networks (Rogat et. al., 2009). BRT is
therefore considered as a mode of the future for global cities, especially those with rigid economic
restrictions, a route which Buenos Aires has taken. As more examples of BRT projects proliferate,
scholars are re-examining the particular promises and results of such systems. Preliminary
conclusions advocate for the evaluation of BRT as a mode in itself, instead of comparisons to light
rail transit, for example, as it accomplishes a wider range of tasks, as seen in Buenos Aires and across

40
 the globe. Its flexibility, however, must be a point of emphasis, and based on early reports, there are
little strategies more valuable than in-depth discussion of the impacts on broader economic and
mobility goals for residents as early in the process as possible (Ferbrache, 2019).

Progress

Significant changes to the status quo are developing still today. By 2014, Metrobús systems
reduced travel times for some riders 20 to 40 percent, with some measurements estimating closer to
50
Visual 5: Station along Avenida San Martin within the CABA which runs to
the border of the “Partido” of San Martin in the Province. Typical
Metrobús station with raised and covered platforms and dedicated lanes-
requires two to divide opposite directions. Stations occur every four or five
blocks. We arrived to take the bus during the afternoon, not during the
peak but close, and waited over a half an hour for our bus, which we would
be able to take the full length of the corridor. Many buses stop here, but
not all run the full length of the corridor. I noticed motorcycles and
ambulances also using the dedicated lanes. There were quite a few people,
coming and going in waves as they boarded a variety of bus lines.

Visual 6: Example of the information provided at each Metrobús station

along Avenida San Martín. Note the street context map with street names
incorporating one or two blocks into the surrounding area. Detail
regarding cross-walk locations and directional traffic arrows reveal decent
attention to related foot and motor traffic. This also shows the multiple
colectivo lines available along the route, as well as their destinations, but
crucially not all are available at each stop. On our journey, this required
getting off one line and waiting for another in order to reach the limits of
the system, which was easier than transferring without a coordinated
Metrobús system, but which was still disruptive and not readily apparent-
not to mention difficult to square with satellite-enabled route mapping
through platforms like Google Maps.

percent. For the 9 de Julio route, once a prime example of traffic congestion, Metrobús
transformations resulted in hour-long routes reduced 20 minutes. Once affecting more sectors of
the city, the project was estimated to reduce emissions by thousands of tons each year, as well as
ease the use of oil and gas. More than 1,200,000 passengers benefitted from the first few systems in
place, and more transit choices have eased the negative impacts of transit (C40, 2013).

41
 In 2014, the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy, ITDP granted the city the
Sustainable Transport Award, owed in large part to the success of the 9 de Julio Metrobús project
(Valente, 2014). The ITDP report cited reduced travel times, but also improved quality of life
indicators, including one story of a family which noted more time together and a more tranquil life
in the city. Metrobús stops, some of which boast Wi-Fi and which display arrival times, provide a
well-lit, clean place to wait- and not for very long, signal significant improvements. Increased
mobility through the 9 de Julio corridor allowed other streets to convert to pedestrian traffic,

Visual 7: Example of accessibility ramps
typical on Metrobús platforms within
CABA. Provides direct access off crosswalk
for those in wheelchairs or with automobility
difficulties, as well as railings which double
as traffic protection and mobility aids.
Demonstrates the ability to provide decent
accessibility infrastructure within narrow
BRT station structures.
Visual 8: View of an intersection along Metrobús San Martín.
Note extensive intersection markings and division of space. Solid
barriers extend to the at-grade crosswalks- vehicles can only
transfer into and out of dedicated bus lane at intersections such
as this. Shows the building typologies at this point along the
route, including mid-rise residential and mixed-use commercial
on bottom floor. Bus infrastructure provides break in avenue for
more effective crossing, including small yet protected islands for
multi-stage pedestrian crossing.

improving access and reducing noise. Traffic congestion for private vehicles also benefitted from the
dedicated bus lanes, and the growth of real estate values along the route were lauded (ITDP, 2014).
Another crucial benefit was revealed through anecdotal evidence that the reliability of the system
improved as well, providing the ability to plan more effectively for riders to support livelihoods.
This sense of control and stability is one of the most important aspects of sustainable transit, further
securing basic rights to mobility.

42
Regional Exemplars

Comparable systems, such as those found in Curitiba and Bogotá, however, provide
aspirational examples of the possibilities for sustainable transit, which Buenos Aires as yet does not
fulfill. These are example cities not only for Latin America, but light the way for many global cities,
north and south.
Curitiba recognized the necessary advantages of robust transit investment early on. During
the 1960s, city master planning prioritized street networks and corresponding transit routes that
ingrained public transit options. Political support from the city was key throughout the visioning and
implementation process, and the resulting system, consisting solely of BRT without fixed rail routes,
operates hundreds of bus lines through a clear management and information system. Curitiban
families enjoy safe, clean, modern, and well-equipped terminals where passengers pay once upon
entering before traveling throughout the integrated system. This ease of access is why 1,500,000
people or 75 percent of all city passengers, use the system each day. Low prices guarantee access for
lower-income riders, ensuring that transit costs rise no higher than 10 percent of the cost of living.
Environmental benefits accrue from a 25 percent reduction in fossil fuel consumption in the city,
and significant greenhouse gas reductions as people choose mass transit over cars. In fact, estimates
show that 28 percent of BRT riders shifted to the system from cars, a statistic Buenos Aires would
like to replicate. Finally, Curitiba’s transit investments represented an effective way to organize a
growing, fragmenting global city, all within the limits of tight city budgets (Rogat et. al. 2009).
In Bogotá, Colombia, more comparable to Buenos Aires in population, the TransMilenio
BRT system forms an example of sustainability, security, low costs, and efficient functioning for
residents, recognized throughout Latin America. Bogota’s BRT including dedicated lanes and
articulated buses is coupled with restrictions on daily private vehicle usage. Fare collection system
mirrors the SUBE tap card system in Buenos Aires, integrating technology for more efficient
boarding and data collection. Both Bogotá and Buenos Aires also depend on contracts with private
bus companies with similar central contract management structures, though Bogotá exercises more
control at the central city level (Rogat et. al., 2009) These similarities, and the resounding success of
the TransMilenio system, charted a promising path forward for Buenos Aires BRT, and one the
benefits of which transit officials in Buenos Aires were well acquainted (M. López Menéndez and F.
Giachetti, Personal Communications, August 9, 2019 and August 20, 2019).

43
 Once constructed, the Juan B. Justo and 9 de Julio corridors were scored, based on the
ITDP’s BRT Scorecard (ITDP.org) and received Bronze (61 points) and Silver (70 points) ratings,
respectively. Though both collected close to maximum point totals on four of five key metrics, the
lack of Off-Board Fare Collection eliminates the possibility of a Gold rating. The original Juan B.
Justo corridor scores just below the 9 de Julio corridor on Busway Alignment, Dedicated Right of
Way, Intersectional Treatments, and Platform-Level Boarding, which are features in the Buenos
Aires BRT System. Of the close to 100 systems around the world which have received ratings, this
performance amounts to intermediate BRT standards, and though Gold standards are granted to a
small number of global projects, many of those are located in Latin America, including Brazil,
Colombia, Mexico, and Perú. As the subsequent city and regional Metrobús corridors are modeled
on the original city projects, all Metrobús systems in the metropolitan area would score at a Silver or
below if scored to the same rubric. The Matanza route was originally planned by the national
government to achieve the Gold standard, though subsequent changes reduced this score (Flores
and Diaz, 2019).
Not all BRT projects are created equal, however. Flores and Diaz (2019), in their
comparison of BRT systems throughout Latin America, characterize the Buenos Aires system as
based on a “tweak” model, instead of a “disruption” model. Disruption occurs where a retreated
state reestablishes full control over the transit system, and reorganizes it based on the prerogatives of
a reinvigorated state orientation. For Buenos Aires, where hundreds of Colectivo operators and
significant modal and jurisdictional fragmentation, persist, as well as a dominant radial structure, the
shift to neodesarrollismo did not effectuate this whole-sale disruption, preferring to guide the system
through more organized, integrated facilities (Flores and Díaz, 2019).

Chapter 4: Case Studies

Metrobús: From CABA to Province

Metrobús, therefore, arrived in Buenos Aires expressly driven by the convergence of both
local and international initiative. On a Tuesday morning, May 31st, 2011, officials from the Buenos
Aires City Department of Transportation, were joined by then Mayor of Buenos Aires, to inaugurate
the first BRT Corridor in the city along Avenida Juan B. Justo, 12.5 km of dedicated bus lanes
calling at 21 raised, covered stations between radial commuter rail routes in the northern Palermo
neighborhood and the Liniers station in the west of the city (“Metrobús, Argentina’s First BRT,”

44
“First BRT System Launches, 2011). Also present were key international supporters of the project,
including the Institute for Transportation Development Policy (ITDP), and the Clinton Climate
Initiative (CCI). Buenos Aires City Transportation Secretary, Guillermo Dietrich, spoke of the
transit and connectivity benefits for the city, and Mayor Macri emphasized the “progress in the
development of urban transportation” marked by the project and the “increased quality of life of
more than 100,000 people.” Macri went on to thank the two international partners for their crucial
“technical, financial, and operational advice,” and declared his desire to expand the system
throughout his jurisdiction. Andres Fingeret, jointly the Director of the ITDP office and CCI City
Director for the city of Buenos Aires, lauded Metrobús as the next leap in implementing improved
walkability, bike-ability, and improved transit and pollution-reduction policy toward “sustainable
mobility” (“First BRT System Launches,” 2011).
Two of the senior officials on the city’s senior BRT Executive Unit, Manuéla López
Menéndez, Unit Leader, and María José Vázquez, attended as well, pictured with their colleagues on

Visual 9: "Mapa del Estado," organizational map of National Ministry of Transport. Source: Jefatura de Gabinete de
Ministros, Presidencia de la Nacion, 2019.
the site of the fruits of their labor (“Metrobus, Argentina’s First BRT, 2011). The Juan B. Justo
planning effort alone took two years of work, part of a major city-wide transportation planning
program instituted by the newly elected mayor Mauricio Macri, who took office in 2007, opting to
create Metrobús instead of pursuing more capital-intensive rail proposals. The project involved
weekly meetings, outreach to business leaders and bus operators, riders and those who lived and
worked along the corridor to convince stakeholders of the benefits of the project (M. J. Vazquez,
Personal Communication, August 21, 2019).

45
 The initial project along Juan B. Justo was followed by the 3 km Metrobús 9 de Julio and the
23 km Metrobús Sur, both completed in 2013 (Buenos Aires: Plan for Sustainable Mobility, 2013).
The former, an iconic 20-lane avenue dividing the concentrated government and financial center on
the eastern edge of Buenos Aires from the sprawling metropolis fanning out to the west,
transformed the heart of the city. The latter provided crucial support for common long-distance
commutes stringing together barrios
along southern, more working-class
areas. Despite consternation, especially
over the highly publicized 9 de Julio
project, this initial Metrobús stage
estimated significant reductions in key
metrics of commute time and carbon
emissions, both promoted in planning
stages by international and local bodies.
Planning documents asserted a 50%
reduction in travel times, as well as a
5,612 metric ton reduction in CO2
production per year (Buenos Aires:
Visual 10: Map of the full CABA Metrobús system in
Plan for Sustainable Mobility, 2013).
operation. Note the transversal routes which also serve as
Rider accounts also painted a rosy connections between major rail nodes (Juan B. Justo, Metrobús
del Bajo), and those which follow the radial pattern. Source:
picture, including safer, more informed City of Buenos Aires.

commuting along the Metrobús Sur that reduced an hour commute to just 40 minutes. Beyond
anecdotes of improved service, pedestrians and bikers enjoyed the safer, more pleasant downtown,
from better lighting, to bike lanes, to raising street grades encourage walking, amplifying the public
benefits of such transit projects as effective agents of improvement for urban life as a whole
(Valente, 2014).
Bringing such massive, symbolic projects to fruition, and altering the commuting landscape
for hundreds of thousands of riders had a galvanizing effect. The reported final price tag reached
$25 million dollars for the 9 de Julio project alone- significantly over budget, but a paltry sum
comparted to more capital-intensive rail investments. Residents marveled as the “widest avenue in
the world” gave way to weather-protected bus stops and linear parks, creating a renewed sense of
“democracy on the road.” Results earned this initial phase of Metrobús wide acclaim in planning

46
circles, including the ITDP’s 2014 Sustainable Transport Award. Though Dietrich discouraged any
simplified “copying and pasting” of such systems to diverse cities and neighborhoods, the program
was slated for expansion within the city, aiming to benefit over one million riders with four new
Metrobús corridors by 2015 (Valente, 2014, ITDP, 2020, and Rasore, 2014, 11-12). Over the decade
following the Juan B. Justo Metrobús opening, the city completed six more Metrobús projects, for a
total network of 62.5 km, with 91 separate bus routes funneling through the system (City of Buenos
Aires, No date).
The shift to Metrobús implementation in the city occurred during a period of state re-
assertion on a federal level. Following a wave of transit planning integration efforts beginning in the
1990s and supported by the World Bank (World Bank, 2017), 2011 heralded continued
administrative consolidation under the auspices of Ministry of Federal Planning, Public Investment,
and Services. This entity sought to build on the stability achieved during the first Kirchner
administration and “restore the planning role of the state,” and “facilitate… the different levels of
government and a consensus with civil society organizations” (Ministerio de Planificación Federal,
Inversión Pública, y Servicios, 2011). A renewed planning effort to encompass the full metropolitan
area emerged in 2012, undergirded by the creation of the national Ministry of the Interior and
Transport (Ministerio de Interior y Transporte) laid out in Decree 874/12 (Velázquez, 2013,
Velázquez, 2013). Consolidating related entities under this new executive department, officials at the
federal level gained enhanced powers over the “regulation and coordination of land, maritime, and
river transport systems” (translated by author from Nación de Argentina, 2012). Crucially, language
in the decree cited the benefits of integration of national planning capacities, but advocated for the
role of central influence to coordinate between transit modes, as well as coordinate a tripartite
relationship between the Province of Buenos Aires, and in conjunction it’s municipalities, the City of
Buenos Aires, and the federal government (Nación de Argentina, 2012).
Perhaps spurred to action in part by the striking proliferation transit development of
Metrobús along key rights-of-way controlled by Macri’s PRO political party in the city (Flores and
Díaz, 2019), national consciousness was also sparked by an appalling transit disaster in February
2012. In the most grievous train accident in the country since the distant 1970s, a peak-hour train
carrying more than 1,200 people failed to stop as it pulled into Once Station, a vital, centrally located
commercial and residential destination. The train smashed into the emergency stoppage installations,
causing the deaths of 51 people, and over 700 injuries. In the ensuing judicial response to the
disaster, major corruption cases resulted among not only the private company, Trenes Argentinas,

47
which owned and managed the line, but also the federal regulatory agencies, such as the CNRT,
charged with oversight. Responding to this dereliction of duty, the federal government acted,
prosecuting individuals, taking temporary control of the train company, and purging the federal
regulatory apparatus of those implicated in the case (Velázquez, 2013).
In late 2012, Argentina created the Metropolitan Transportation Agency, assuming the
mantle abdicated by the Buenos Aires Metropolitan Area Planning Group (PLATAMBA) in 2011,
and composed of representatives from the Province and the City of Buenos Aires, as well as the
Federal government. This group was the mature version of the early 1990s’ Urban Transport Unit
for the metropolitan area of Buenos Aires (TAUMBA), and a legacy of the Buenos Aires Urban
Transport Project, a collaboration supported by an initial $200 Million loan from the World Bank
dating to 1997 (IEG: World
Bank, 2017). Interrupted during
the crisis years of the early
2000s, this project was
reinvigorated alongside the state
during this period, and played a
crucial funding and
administrative role in the
origination of the La Matanza
BRT project. In partnership with
Visual 11: View from the train passing the San Martín stop. Note the the Federal planning agencies,
crossing infrastructure in place, and the plaza-like programming of the
station, including trees from shade and expanded pedestrian control of the the Matanza route, the first in
streetscape. The train station is small with a long platform. Riders often hold
their belongings in front of them to avoid theft. The bike in the image also the Province, was originally
shows the viability of connecting bike travel with the train.
planned as a Gold-Standard
BRT project, complete with prepaid boarding, articulated buses, and closed stations (Flores and
Díaz, 2019). When Macri ascended to the presidency in 2015, however, the route was altered,
though officials maintain that the original licensing agreement was honored without fail (F.
Giachetti, Personal Communication, August 20, 2019).
Macri’s election signaled a rare event in Argentine politics- the political alignment of the
Province, the CABA, and the Federal government. The city planning staff he elevated to the national
level, would facilitate the activation of the Metropolitan Transit Agency (ATM), an integrated body
now aligned along party lines. (Flores and Díaz, 2019, and IEG: World Bank, 2017). Though

48
international lending was a key financing mechanism of the La Matanza route, public funds were the
exclusive source for the remainder of BRT projects in greater Buenos Aires, including along Ruta 8
(M. López Menéndez, Personal Communication, August 9, 2019; El Constructor, January 3, 2019).
Thus, thanks to the re-assertion of Federal planning functions, forward-thinking infrastructure
initiatives throughout the region, its articulation through political and bureaucratic alignment, and
most of all a dedicated, experienced transit planning staff with a rubric that worked, the groundwork
was laid for the translation of Metrobús to the Provincial level.
Since 2015, then, an energetic transportation and infrastructure planning initiative spilled
over into the Province of Buenos Aires, now with long-anticipated administrative tools at its
disposal, and the might of federal government at its back. The solidified ATM articulated its regional
planning consensus through the Plan Director de Transporte (PDT), which directly linked the
planning regime and the corridor hierarchy system developed in the CABA, with priorities in the
Province. Metrobús was a powerful tool in this expansion, forwarding efforts to prioritize public
transit over private automobiles, redesign and implement infrastructure upgrades, including lighting
and road-side parking, integrate new information technologies, and deliver better quality and
comfortable service to areas lacking adequate transit connections (ATM, 2018).
The plan also recognized the historical inefficiencies and inherent challenges confronting the system.
Though the same political party had achieved consensus at the national, provincial, and regional
levels, the individual municipalities, the plan explained, still respectively controlled major
infrastructure implementation and route planning, as well as contractual relationships with service
providers, such as taxis and remises, or land use and transit station planning (ATM, 2008). In
addition to pure bureaucratic inefficiency, some municipalities were headed by governments
opposed to the regional PRO party governmental consensus, and thus could oppose projects on
political grounds. This was by no means prohibitive, but officials recognized the potential pitfalls
inherent in such relationships (E. Fevre, Personal communication, January 29, 2020).
Metrobús corridor projects were included as potential remedies for two systemic deficiencies
which would compete for priority. Not only the lack of integrated street hierarchy along radial
routes, a programming objective for Metrobús to relate to the CABA, but also the “persistence of a

49
 Visual 12: Train Route Map on the Mitre-Suarez Line. This route map illustrates the complex relationship
between the transit alternatives available in greater Buenos Aires. The train is one of the major fixed-route
arterials which dominates the volume of Buenos Aires transit trips. Beginning in Retiro, the largest station
serving predominantly the northern sections of the metropolitan area and located in the north of the city
center, the lines disperse, sometimes splitting into branches as noted in this diagram. From the perspective of
passengers viewing this route map posted in the train car, flocks of colectivo routes weave in and out of the
orbit of each train station along the route. Most concentrated at Retiro- where a great majority of local and
regional routes converge, options along the rest of the route are quite dispersed. First, the lack of interaction
between the two radial fixed-route systems- the SUBTE lines and the regional rail lines- interact only at the
Gral. Urquiza stop (SUBTE Linea B), at Retiro (Linea C), and Carranza (Linea D). All three transfer points are
within the city, as the SUBTE only serves CABA, and interact only once at the periphery. The Metrobús,
disappointingly, mirrors this behavior. Though accessible in the periphery through at the end of the Mitre
route, this may indicate an inefficiency rather than marker of connectivity, as the Metrobús Norte (Source:
buenosaires.gob.ar/movilidad/metrobus/metrobus-norte), which connects with another costal train at the
Mitre Station, and proceeds along the northern upscale commercial and residential route of the Cabildo avenue.
This route, an early Metrobús, has undoubtedly improved transit service along this route, it replicates other
regional rail routes, strengthening the arterial, rather than connecting regional loci. Metrobús is only found in
the central city, once again in Retiro and Carranza, which may have beneficial effects, but fails to distribute
those effects on a wide, regional basis. Crucially, the Ruta 8 Metrobús, nor the Avenida San Martín route are
marked as possible connections along the train route, so even if plausible for trips, it goas unrecognized by
planners and therefore riders navigating the system. Finally, in terms of the colectivos, the behavior is that of a
conglomeration around these fixed routes, connecting and disconnecting. While this intriguingly serves a
limited regional purpose for connecting disparate or transversal destinations, it is hardly represented in a
manner understandable for the wider public without certain experiential knowledge. Given the separation of
the Metrobús, which served to align routes on the other side of the Partido of San Martín, a far greater
interaction between colectivo and train lines may have been lost.
radial scheme in the mobility of the area and insufficient transversal connections in the major route

50
structure.” In response, the plan proposed “Transversal Metrobuses” such as 9 de Julio and del Bajo
in the CABA, as well as intensification of the Camino del Buen Ayre ring-route highway. Another
related deficiency noted here was the lack of an “organic network of high-capacity intermunicipal
transit,” specifically mentioning the Partido of Tres de Febrero, which conceivably, a Metrobús
system could achieve. (Author translation, ATM, 2018, pg. 18) Further priorities included promoting
connections between modes throughout the region, and facilitation of semi-circumnavigation, along
routes such as Ruta 4 and large highways such as General Paz and the Camino del Buen Ayre, and
improving street accessibility for
pedestrians (ATM, 2018, pg. 37-39). In
these accounts, planners recognized
how residents throughout the urban
ring, let alone CC8, would benefit from
improved transit capacity along Ruta 4,
a main connector between dispersed
train routes (Vio, No Date, 2019). The
Camino de Borde, as well, was slated to
connect with the Avenida
Panamericana, a key access
route to the north, in addition to its
function as linking the communities of
the Reconquista River Basin (J.
Arosena, Personal Communication,
Visual 13: Distance to Metrobús Ruta 8, from near the geographical
January 24, 2020). Finally, a list of center of the settlements. From the closest point to Ruta 8 in Costa
Esperanza, the distance is about 600 meters, just outside the planning
identified projects, though not rubric for accessibility and potential ridership. Source: Google Maps,
generated 16 April, 2019.
prescriptive, illuminated the hierarchy
of projects. Toward the top of the list were the Ruta 8 corridor projects- first in the municipality of
Tres Febrero and then the municipality of San Martín, followed further down by transversal projects
along Ruta 4, and then paving of municipal roads and pedestrian assistance- for which, at the time of
writing, 50 km had been executed. (ATM, 2018, pg. 43-44)
The program, therefore, of infrastructure development by regional planners in the Province,
was to advance first down priority radial, provincially-controlled route corridors, fitting them to the
typology of the CABA. Though recognizing the importance of transversal routes and the

51
solidification of multi-modal travel within and throughout individual municipalities, resources would
be devoted first to projects where the avenues for development were most amenable. These
structural factors, combined with the tools at planners’ disposal, shaped the project along Ruta 8.
Key planning considerations included demographic data on socioeconomic factors, existing transit
service by quantity of buses, lines, and territorial coverage, and feasibility and constructability of the
project, or demonstrated lack of infrastructure (M. Goia and J.P. Salina, F. Porcelli, P. Spadaro, C.
Frutos, Personal Communication, August 21, 2019 and January 17, 2020). For the Ruta 8 in Tres
Febrero project, potential ridership figures reached 120,000, considering six lines of colectivos.
Based on the metric of 500 meters used by planners (J.P. Salina, et. al., Personal Communication,

Visual 14: Street view and satellite image at the end of the Metrobús Tres Febrero. This was the first section of
the Metrobús built in this area, later extended on the southeastern edge of the rotunda where Ruta 4 meets Ruta
8. These images mirror the clear barrier created by the highway which serves as a barrier to further development.
The Metrobús, reaches to this barrier, but does not cross it. The accessibility infrastructure is here demonstrated
by the range of family and mobility needs of those riding the colectivos in this area, or attempting to cross the
wide avenue. The satellite view on the right shows the typological context in striking relief, with larder, industrial
or warehouse buildings along the wide avenue, subsiding into obliquely oriented, rectangular neighborhoods of
varying density. It is quite apparent from this aerial, and corroborated by the ground image, the suitability of this
section of roadway for industrial traffic, yet with particular pedestrian needs.

52
 Visual 16: Metrobús Ruta 8 station infrastructure including
information panel. Route map shows streets with names up
to 3-5 blocks in extent, as well as route numbers by station,
and route destinations just as within CABA. Map zoom here
shows 7 station installations along numerous blocks,
whereas the map from CABA stations shows 1 or 2 stations.
Unclear to riders whether this is due to shorter distances at
Visual 15: Example of barrier infrastructure scale, or an inflated scale.
along Metrobús Ruta 8 in the Provincia.
Decreasing quality of construction materials Visual 17: Example of the
evident here, yet similar typologies to the station infrastructure with
CABA route, including mixed-use commercial orienting information. Notable
on ground floor, and mid-rise residential. that Ruta 4 is deemed a
Barriers are similar and size and effect, though sufficient landmark to orient
less concrete and implements. Intersection riders, perhaps understood as a
programming is present, including crossing point of
protections for pedestrians that enhance the embarkation/disembarkation
cross-avenue accessibility, but maintenance for the continuation of a
appears as lower-quality and less clear. Volume journey. Also note the covered,
of traffic also notably lower, though with raised platform, and the
roadside necessity to accommodate commercial nomenclature related to the
vehicles and lack of parking availability. Reconquista river basin, as well
as beautification along the
simplified barriers.
January 17, 2020) to project potential riders, the settlement would not necessarily be captured in
these considerations, not to mention the administrative challenges inherent in counting residents, as
well as SUBE card data skewed by the lack of stops within “informal” neighborhoods. Nevertheless,
Ruta 8 was an important commercial and industrial route severely lacking in basic infrastructures
such as lighting, traffic control, and adequate crossings (Municipality of Tres de Febrero, No Date:
2015-2020).
The first stretch of the Ruta 8 Metrobús completed was between the Camino del Buen Ayre
and the Rotunda at the intersection with Ruta 4. Stretching 2.5 km, the project was contained within
the Partido of Tres de Febrero, a municipality aligned politically with the PRO party. Planners and

53
riders alike concurred with the woeful image of the route before Metrobús arrived, bereft of
systematic development, including pedestrian infrastructure, surrounded by often impassible
expanses of dirt and grass. Inaugurated in October 2017, it was one of the first advertisements to
residents and riders in the province, who above all lauded the improvements in accessibility, such as
signaling and lighting along the route, and the security and comfort it provided (Tres de Febrero,
2015-2020; E. Fevre, August 2019).
The second, section, completed a full two years later on the western edge of the Partido of
San Martín, took much longer, was divided into sections along its 7.9 km extent, and experienced a
number of roadblocks (City of Buenos Aires, 2019). Periodicals documented not only the progress
of the works in San Martín, but the political drama between Gabriel Katopodis, the Mayor of San
Martín, of the opposition party, and the officials in Macri’s administration. Though news stories
emphasized the divisions, including the favoring of one project over another based on political
patronage, planners were able to collaborate on a project that took city demands into account and
conformed with their prior regional initiatives. The final piece was able to establish a veritable
connection, the second of its kind, between the Metrobús corridors in the Province and those within
the CABA, (Clarín, September 3, 2019) creating a functional connection with the Metrobús along
the Avenida San Martín, which connected in turn with the original Juan B. Justo corridor. Once
complete, the corridor incorporated 12 lines of colectivos, for the benefit of 150,000 passengers
(Revista Colectibondi, July 16, 2019).
This greater number of potential passengers and circulation of colectivos signifies the
geographic difference between the two Ruta 8 corridors, separated by the rotunda at the intersection
with Ruta 4. Closer to the city center both of San Martín and the CABA as a whole, the lower Ruta 8
corridor required multiple phases, the second of which alone required an investment by the
government, contracted by the Public Works section of the national transport ministry, of $301
million pesos, or about $68 million Argentine pesos per kilometer. Approaching the CABA, the
official Metrobús route doubled a few streets into the interior of San Martín, before continuing
toward the city border (El Constructor, January 3, 2019). From the beginning of the Tres Febrero
construction to the connection with the CABA, the process took about three years. For the second
phase of the San Martín section, estimates circled around 5 months- about a kilometer per month.
The indicated difficulty, despite admittedly small sample size, lends credence to the greater
complications arising from Metrobús construction in the Province, where the denser, more

54
residential sections of Partidos, exacerbated by political differences, lead to more complex systems
which require greater time, resources, and collaboration to complete.
Overall, those with intimate knowledge of the Ruta 8 planning project, remember the
process in a similar way. Final reflection upon the works reflected the nationally-driven process
within which the projects were included, shown triumphantly with powerful before and after photos
in the 2015-2019 report produced by the National Ministry of Transport. Introduced by Macri, and
elaborated by Dietrich, the Tres Febrero and San Martín Metrobús projects, together with all
national Metrobús projects completed in four short years, “changed how to ride the bus forever”
(Ministro de Transporte de La Nación, 2019, pg. 7) It also demonstrates a key point of
understanding between government officials and residents alike- the Metrobús as not simply a
transportation project, but a form of urban transformation in both aesthetic and procedural

Visual 18: Images of completed Ruta 8 Metrobús project. Source: Ministerio de Transporte de la Nación, 2019.

dimensions- a merging of bus infrastructure, public relations, and land use.

Consolidation at the Federal level was perhaps a prerequisite for this globalized perspective.
Backed by combined Federal and Provincial resources, the proliferation of Metrobús took place
over the course of a rapid decade, negotiating the historical and political complexity of the region as
a whole, and transforming urban corridors in the space of under a year in some cases.
Unprecedented coordination developed, percolating up through personnel teams forged in the
crucible of city Metrobús development. Contracting and implementation involved weekly meetings
to evaluate the process and incorporate new knowledge, often facilitated between the three
components of the Ministry of Transport: Management, Planning, and Works (Gestión,
Planificación, and Obras) and the personal connections between them. Even completed projects
were not free of oversight, as year-long provisional contracts remained subject to review under the

55
responsibility of the Works department. Works officials also gathered feedback from business
owners and residents along the routes, informed by the data modeling from expanded SUBE
alighting data and GPS systems, and
technical expertise housed in the
Planning department. In interviews,
planners rejected the notion of
determining policy from their
government offices in Microcentro, but
spent time on the ground in areas along
Ruta 8, and devoted thought to area-
specific issues such as the navigation of Visual 19: Examples along the Ruta 8 stretch of the Metrobús
of retail and small industrial uses. Note the lack of clear
the rotunda at the Ruta 8/Ruta 4 pedestrian division between the street and the earthen store-
fronts, juxtaposed with the imposing development and
intersection, ultimately deemed best to landscaping of the Metrobús median. Also provides a
leave in its previous state. The juxtaposition of the wide avenue with the tight side-street
corridors which appear to be one-way. State of slight disrepair
Management department was indicates an active economic life, yet unsupported by large-scale
investment.
responsible for training of hundreds of
colectivo conductors, recognizing the long process of adaptation to the new routes. (Personal
Communication, F. Giachetti and M. Goia, August 2019; M. López Menéndez and J.P. Salina et. al,
January 2020).
The legacies of fragmentation remained major challenges cited by planners, including the
disconnect between priorities, responsibilities, and information-sharing between municipalities and
the regional planning effort (Personal Communication, E. Fevre and F. Giachetti, August 2019; E.
Fevre, January 2020). These limitations manifested in the research for this paper as well, as multiple
calls and emails to city officials requesting an interview or documentation to discuss planning
initiatives were not necessarily refused, but were either ignored or lost in bureaucratic dynamics due
to the changing political situation. Planners and residents were most apt to share a totalizing
approval of the transformation of the corridor as a whole. Noted by officials, the improvement of
lighting, signalization, and programmatic security of the system, as well as improved frequency along
the route aided by information-sharing technologies, were highly persuasive aspects of public
consensus building. Though private motorists disapproved often, businesses were especially
appreciative of pedestrian infrastructure along affected routes in the Province (Personal
Communication, M. Goia, 2019; C. Sanguinetti, August 21, 2019).

56
 Visual 21: Progressing southeast down Ruta 8, bus turns
onto Calle Puerreydón. This image shows the rest of
Ruta 8 without the Metrobús, as it is before crossing
into CABA. This avenue is wide enough to support four
lanes of traffic, and parking lanes along both edges.
Note the improved quality of street and sidewalk
programming, more abundant street lighting, and more
professional building materials upon approaching the
city, and within the orbit of smaller provincial partidos
such as San Martín. On the right, another hospital
comes within a couple of blocks of Ruta 8, as well as the
COTO supermarket, and educational institutions such
as the Universidad de San Martín (UNSAM) business
school. The bus route does not extend to the COTO
and hospital, turning into the middle of the San Martín
partido.

Visual 20: Satellite images along the Metrobús Ruta 8.

The left image is zoomed and reveals the types of
installations found along the route, including a military
training center, a hospital just a block from the main
avenue, large commercial or warehouse buildings,
Federal offices, and a range of neighborhoods and
vacant land uses. To the right, zooming out the context
of Ruta 8 becomes apparent, especially its context in the
middle of two radial train routes, and the street design
changes as Ruta 8 approaches the CABA (across
Avenida General Paz. This image shows how the Ruta 8
routes pass along the Western edge of the Partido of San
Martín, traversing a wide range of urban formations.

In response to specifications for populations of settlements in contact with Metrobús routes,

there appeared to be no special consideration, despite the proximity of corridors such as Ruta 8.
Planners tended to respond in terms of larger metrics of poverty in surrounding areas, and the
necessity to respect and provide for the rights of those living in such areas (Personal
Communication, M. Goia, August 2019; E. Fevre, August 2019; J.P. Salina et. al., January 2020).
Planners certainly understood the special limitations, both socioeconomic and spatial, which
settlement residents experienced. However, beyond the broader goals of improving conditions along
the corridors themselves, such as reduced time spent along the route, or sidewalks and crosswalks,
the specific impacts Metrobús projects might have on these limitations, remained underdeveloped.
Perhaps exacerbated structurally, administrative infrastructure was equipped without a primary goal
of nurturing connections with those left outside the direct land-use process or cultivating the voices
of those predisposed to silence by the narrowed channels of influence. Despite the existence of
organizations such as OPISU active within the time-frame of the works, collaborations with these

57
sources of additional information appear limited to information sharing at the pure planning stage,
weighing professional infrastructure plans against existing transit initiatives (Personal
Communication, M. Goia, August 2019). Crucially, the absence of concrete, top-down efforts to
form robust relationships with settlement areas through the planning process must not negate the
obvious, material, widespread benefits of improvements achieved through the Metrobús project. It
does, however, urge future projects toward more comprehensive, admittedly more time-consuming
and complex, approaches for public transit mobility services which involve the ownership and
participation in the process of all concerned.

OPISU: Settlements and Precarious Life

The development of settlements in the Buenos Aires metropolitan area has a similarly
complex history, shaped by the contours of economy and politics. Land markets previously open to
development without infrastructure, in the form of the loteos populares, were a primary driver urban
expansion, supported by Peronist social and mass transit investment, and access to credit from the
Banco Hipotecario Nacional. Law 8912, instituted by in 1977 at the outset of the military
dictatorship, made this type of land acquisition and development illegal. This period of restriction
diminished territorial population growth briefly, but the economic and political reorganization of the
neoliberal era led to wealth and income stratification, squeezing poorer residents out of the rapidly
privatizing and stratifying real estate market. Though difficult to measure, this contributed to a new
normal of significant illegal land occupation, or residents of villas miserias through the neoliberal
period (Clichevsky, 2012). Methods vary widely, but the reality of urban life in Buenos Aires and
across Latin America is the presence of hundreds of thousands of souls living in precarious homes
(LLI, 2011).
The precarity of home was also perpetrated through a “precarization of labor” that
accompanied this period (Olmedo and Murray, 2002). Loosening of regulations, cuts to social
programs, and increased legal flexibility for employers, drove down wages creating a growing mass
of people experiencing “social exclusion and poverty” (Olmedo and Murray, 2002). Skyrocketing
unemployment and inflation contributed to a consumption crisis, and people turned to creative
solutions in a growing market- the collection and sale of recycled material. Known as “cartoneros,”
the growth of a waste economy was contested by concentration of power in large, quasi-public
entities such as the CEAMSE (Coordinación Ecológica Área Metropolitana Sociedad del Estado) a
quasi-governmental corporation, also created in 1977 at the outset of the dictatorship, which made

58
independent waste collection illegal. However, dire economic circumstances raised the price of
recycle material to such an extent that it represented a demanding, yet stable alternative to the formal

Visual 22: Views along the Camino del Borde facing toward the highway Buen Ayre. Across the highway the greenery
surrounding CEAMSE can be seen. On the left, the edge of the dump on the northeastern edge of the large vacant
area is in the eyeline of the Avenida Eva Perón, forming the corner parcel just in front of the Justice Center. The road
then snakes toward the highway and around Costa del Lago, encapsulating the lagoon between the road and the
settlement. Along this curve there is a tree, which municipal police chose as a resting spt. This is evidence of municipal
police presence in the neighborhood, though taking a characteristically disconnected position, and well within easy
channels of motorized movement.
labor market (Dimarco, 2005, pg. 5).
Of special significance to the CC8 area, just across the Camino de Buen Ayre highway from
the main CEAMSE landfill, the landmass in between which is also owned by CEAMSE, the
independent waste economy remains a powerful social and cultural factor. Not only to people
continue to work in the small, informal dump on the outskirts of the neighborhood, work within
CEAMSE or various cooperatives in the area, sprouted through the labor organization developed
around the waste economy since the neoliberal period, are major sources of employment and
income (Tran, Conejero Ortiz, Pérez Martín, Arif, Wiedenbach, and Goetz, 2019). This fraught
relationship was punctuated by the unresolved death, disappearance, and suspected murder of Diego
Duarte, a 15-year-old living in Costa Esperanza and working in the waste piles of CEAMSE,
accosted by police for working outside of the allotted time frame (Lavaca.org, July 26, 2011). Living
on through the memories of residents, cooperative workers, and through public spaces in the
neighborhood, his memory is a marker of collective struggle and the humanity of life in CC8.

59
 The degradation of the Reconquista river basin informs an essential environmental aspect of

Visual 23: Images of the current progress along the Camino del Borde. On both sides, this takes the form of a
sidewalk along the larger yet not overly wide border road. Currently refuse and overgrowth continue to characterize
the area. In contrast to projects elsewhere in the full settlement project, this is the infrastructure which is being
produced along stretches of open land without connection to the structures of nearby neighborhoods, both “formal”
and “informal.” Based solely on amount of flexibility in space, this may be the least constrained and least invested in
aspect of the project, especially considering its jurisdiction under COMIREC. If carried to their completion, this
Camino del Borde would snake through and around legal and administrative, recreational, and housing installations
implemented by OPISU.
settlement life as well. This geological formation spans a massive land area, within which the Lincoln
Land Institute estimates about 284 separate “informal settlements,” comprised of over 95,000
households (LLI, 2014). Spanning 18 municipal jurisdictions, a regional body, the Committee of the
Reconquista River Basin (COMIREC), was created to study and act in the environmental interests of
residents, facing increased flooding, pollution, and disease vulnerabilities (LLI, 2014). This added
layer of environmental precarity continues to impact quality of life in the settlements, as well as
mobility, not only in terms of traveling in and around polluted areas, but COMIRECs control over
the Camino de Borde transversal road project on the border of CC8 (J. Arosena, Personal
Communication, January 24, 2020).
In contrast to earlier policies to criminalize and eradicate settlement areas and concomitant
hyper-precarious forms of work, policies under neo-desarrollista governments focus on the
“formalization” of land and labor, through state employment programs such as Argentina
Trabaja, and a litany of service organizations tasked with fitting settlement areas with infrastructure
and restoring legal jurisdiction (Hopp, 2016; Mitchell, 2015; LLI, 2011). Such shifts in institutional
responses can crystallize in defining cultural practices, including the convergence of these labor,

60
environmental, and transportation issues on a regional scale through the iconic “Tren Blanco”
(White Train). Shown in vivid detail through the documentary film El Tren Blanco (Cine Efectivo,
2003), Vieira and Thompson (2012) further contextualize regional transit access in neoliberal
arrangements, followed by neodesarrollista responses. These commissioned trains, including along
the Mitre line to José León Suárez, connected major nodes of the recycling economy, ferrying
“cartoneros” in painted white trains between the CABA and waste outposts such as CEAMSE.
Thus, the OPISU project in the province entered a socio-political environment characterized by a
reassertion of the state in subaltern land markets which survived, and a multi-layered institutional
effort to regularize urban space and organize settlement living, amounting to “innumerable
incomplete promises” (Clichevsky, 2012).

Visual 24: Large open field and infrastructure for

school bus parking within Costa Esperanza but
along the southern edge where Calle las Camelias
(current street) meets Diagonal 166 (along the
houses). The field is Cancha 40, which is privately
owned and rented out. Though understood as
within the borders of Costa Esperanza, this is an
intriguing example of public infrastructure, as well
as private ownership serving the surrounding area,
despite the “formal” separation from the legally
defined neighborhood. This blurring of
boundaries is a crucial aspect of the arbitrary
divisions drawn between “formal” and
“informal,” coupled with the absurdity, for
example, that Google Maps Streetview can take
photos of Las Camelias from Diagonal 166, but
not vice versa.
Visual 25: View of a Costa Esperanza
side-street representative of many
rights-of-way within the
neighborhood characterized by
narrow dirt paths, overgrown, with
materials impeding the progress of
motorized vehicles or pedestrians
alike. Still, evidence of cars persists
even here. Also note the lack of
public-facing street life among the
auto-constructed buildings here.

The Provincial Organization for Social and Urban Integration (Organismo Provincial de
Integración Social y Urbana, OPISU), was created by the government of the Province of Buenos
Aires in March 2018, its functions delineated in Laws Number 14.989 and Number 14.449 under the
Constitution of the Province. As articulated in Decree 168 of 2018, OPISU was charged with

61
promoting the rights to livelihood and to a dignified and sustainable habitat” in “neighborhoods
where nuclei of settlements in a state of precarity” with the goal of “integration of these to the land
jurisdiction of the municipalities of the Province of Buenos Aires” (Author Translation,
Government of the Province of Buenos Aires, March 5, 2018). The organization would serve
multiple oversight and implementation roles, not only on a broader geographical level in the
province, but within specific settlements equipped with dedicated neighborhood teams.
(Government of the Province of Buenos Aires, 2018, Annex I). These teams would develop master
planning documents, coordinate with municipalities, other governmental agencies, and contractors,
and be the faces of the initiative on the ground in each settlement, facilitating workshops and other
organizing functions with the people who lived there. (GPBA, 2018, Annex II).
Beginning with 8 core neighborhoods, which later expanded to a few more by the end of
2019, OPISU’s method involved three stages of intervention, a standardized theory of change for
entering an extremely diverse set of community scales and local issues. These particularities were
recognized through engagement once on the ground- though fungibility of outcomes was not
thoroughly recognized. First, teams would establish footholds, constructing small office spaces in
large containers, and speaking with residents, conducting preliminary surveys, answering questions,
and learning the internal dynamics. Based on these preliminary conversations, they would complete
small-scale infrastructure projects with the limited resources on offer. Finally, a comprehensive
planning exercise stage would incorporate the wealth of knowledge gathered, and direct more
intensive infrastructure development in the neighborhoods, fully integrating them with municipal
systems. Mobility was included as a part of the full scope of considerations. However, preliminary
planning documents describe a limited capacity, no grander than paving streets and walkways,
making vehicle travel easier, and improving accessibility in concert with the municipality. To be sure,
these basic steps were prerequisites in a neighborhood such as Costa Esperanza, given the severe
lack of infrastructures, but there was little attention paid to linking neighborhoods with a broader
regional mobility plan beyond Buen Ayre highway diversions, and the narrow and externally
controlled Camino de Borde (OPISU, Metodología Planes Urbanos, November 9, 2018; Integración
Social y Urbana de Costa Esperanza, Costa del Lago, y 8 de Mayo, November, 2018).

62
 The small neighborhood teams were often composed of young staff, building on their
experiences working in precarious settlements within the CABA, which presented their own diverse
challenges. Production ramped up quickly and OPISU was set up in the Costa Esperanza area by
June of 2018 (OPISU, Metodología, 2018). By November of 2018, swaths of the informal dump
located in the open land between Costa Esperanza and Costa del Lago, near the OPISU offices, as
well as the overgrown and debris-ridden polluted canals bordering the settlement. Outreach to
residents and basic mapping exercises revealed a working knowledge of the important cultural and

Visual 26: View southwest down the front-street serving as the border of the housing are of Costa Esperanza and
the large expanse (right) of open land serving as the locus of OPISU operations. As the state-operated land, the
wider, paved street with larger sidewalk infrastructure on the right is striking. This image also shows in stark
contrast the clear boundary of auto-constructed living, and therefore precarity, reinforced by occupation of the land
available for state projects. This road and the sidewalk on the right side were developed within the vision of the
Camino del Borde, under the construction purview of another entity, COMIREC, and snaking around the outside
of the full settlement complex. It is clear from this image as well the scale of land available as experienced by the
residents of the settlement, which in the past was either space for the dump or unused land not yet reached by the
settlement.

Visual 27: Opposite view along the dividing road, this time with the OPISU nerve center (left) and Costa Esperanza.

economic points within the neighborhood, such as churches and community meal provision, and
relationships with local business and residential leaders were promising. In their presentation to

63
Professor Sanyal’s MIT Practicum class before the January 2019 visit, a range of works were already
in progress, including water and sewer connections, small green space designing and recreational
equipment, and work with households to improve sanitation and connect residents with economic
opportunities. A comprehensive plan was also in a developed stage, with prioritization of residential
improvements, preliminary planning for residential construction and relocation if needed following
high-tension power line manipulation, and even street hierarchies, including possible connections
with the Buen Ayre highway, and the Camino de Borde, conceived as a smaller route to snake along
the outside of the settlement and extend to other peripheral communities under the auspices of
COMIREC, a regional agency responsible for the rehabilitation of the Reconquista River Basin.
(OPISU, Integración Social y Urbana, 2018).
Indeed, the Practicum engagement between OPISU and MIT between the Fall of 2018 and
Spring of 2019 held a more specific objective within its broader collaborative research on the topic.

Visual 28: IDB-OPISU Disbursement Schedule from the bank's Public Simultaneous Disclosure loan proposal. This is
not the final approved document, by the bank's board, though large-scale changes are not anticipated. Source: Inter-
American Development Bank, CCLIP Loan Proposal: (AR-O0012); (AR-L1288). No Date (2018-2019). Pg. 14.
http://idbdocs.iadb.org/wsdocs/getdocument.aspx?docnum=EZSHARE-886698046-75.

More concretely, discussions centered on the most effective use of a portion of the Inter-American
Development Bank loan at OPISU’s disposal for Costa Esperanza. This financial support came
through a Conditional Credit Line for Investment Projects, a product of the IDB. Under the loan
terms elaborated as OPISU began ramping up its operations, up to $400 million USD would be set
aside by the bank, in addition to a $44.5 million USD contribution from the Argentine government.
The execution period was set at 10 years, and the full amortization period was 25 years, with a
flexible, LIBOR based interest rate, and the currency of record was US dollars (IDB, 2018-19,
Project Summary Page).
Reason for caution was in order, given the devaluation of the Argentine Peso since it was
allowed to float following the major financial crisis of the early 2000s, and accelerating since Macri
assumed the presidency (Markets.BusinessInsider.com, May 2020). Though OPISU, an incorporated

64
entity of the Province, served as the executor of the pool of funds, disbursements were regulated
through the national Ministry of the Economy, and the federal government served as guarantor for
the loan. The debt capacity of the Province, as evaluated by the bank, considered the currency
devaluation, substantially in just a few years, which decreased the value of current obligations on
Provincial books, coupled with increasing Provincial resources as a percentage of national Gross
Geographic Product (11%-15%) since 2010. Recognizing the 4% of Province of Buenos Aires debt
held by international investment institutions (74% of which subject to external contractual controls),
and despite this amount rising in terms of a percentage of total revenues in the province, the IDB
approved the debt capacity of the Province, noting the final approval and experience of the national
Argentine government as a clearinghouse. Other fiduciary risks surfaced in bank documents,
including the fragmentary and therefore inefficient nature for procurement and fund dispersal (IDB,
2018-2019, pg. 16-17).

Visual 29: IDB Loan Components detail. Note the preliminary priorities of master planning, then
infrastructure, and finally community strengthening. Source: Inter-American Development Bank,
CCLIP Loan Proposal: (AR-O0012); (AR-L1288). No Date (2018-2019), pg. 13.
http://idbdocs.iadb.org/wsdocs/getdocument.aspx?docnum=EZSHARE-886698046-75.

65
 In its public disclosure documents, the bank describes associated risk factors associated with
OPISU. Rated a 2 out of 4 (4 being most risky), the bank waived certain requirements which OPISU
did not fulfill:
(i) it has not completed a similar project within the last five years;
(ii) there is no previous project with overall execution performance or compliance with the
conditions of the loan contract; and
(iii) it does not have a solid track record of satisfactory performance in the execution of a
previous project.
(IDB, 2018-19, pg. 12)

These risk factors were mitigated by enhanced planning and reporting structures, evaluated
seemingly by the bank officers, and dispersed through agreements within Province and municipal
agreements. Enhanced bank strictures were included as well, including codifying responses to
unanticipated increases in settlement volume as subject to the bank’s Involuntary Resettlement
Framework, frontloading the physical infrastructure investments eligible for bank funding approval
(to be completed within 18 months) at the expense of softer engagement strategies, and bolded in
the report, the “special contractual condition” (sic) of the “Operating Regulations” (sic)
approved by the bank. To ensure compliance, the bank reserved the right to require reporting
mechanisms and staff training procedures throughout the process (IDB, 2018-2019, pg. 18).
Thus, the team on the ground in Costa Esperanza and adjacent neighborhoods was
possessed with a large, if restricted pot of financial resources, backed by a fortified national-
provincial partnership. Though the production and connection of basic infrastructure was
prioritized, it was also funneled through smaller projects for immediate impact. Information
gathering focused on the master planning process, which trickled into bottom-up capacitation of the
residents in certain cases, but ultimately was obligated to focus on the targeting of international
funds toward the most concrete aspects of development. Most concerned with on-site development,
however, linked to national strategies of fair housing and settlement regulation (IDB, 2018-2019, pg.
11), spatial relationships between the settlement and other components of economic development,
though evident in education projects and job placement guidance, were more often subsumed (J.
Arosena, Personal Communication, January 24, 2020). MIT classwork therefore provided the
opportunity to design more integrative projects, such as frameworks for informal economies

66
through relationships with recycling cooperatives, or transportation circulation within or
surrounding the settlement (H. Tran, P. Conejero Ortiz, J. Pérez Martín, R. Arif, A. Wiedenbach,
M. Goetz, 2019).
When the MIT class visited in January 2019, the physical OPISU presence in the
neighborhood complex consisted of a small cluster of containers on the northwestern edge of Costa
Esperanza. Situated opposite the extent of house construction, delimited by the relatively wide
border road OPISU paved upon arrival, officials were separate from the rest of the neighborhood
bordered by the expanse between the settlement and the Buen Ayre highway, and next to the large
earthwork and garbage dump site on the northwest corner of the intersection where Costa
Esperanza met Costa del Lago. Government signs announcing their presence and purpose, including
Visual 30: Playground installation directly behind the Justice
Center, constructed with the aid of OPISU. This image marks
the real progress, yet work still to be done. Machinery and raw
materials remain mired in their work. Lighting upgrades for this
formerly darkened expanse on the edge of the neighborhood is
also significant.
Visual 31: Image of the Justice Center constructed as one of the
major building initiatives for OPISU. Located steps from the area
where OPISU housed its makeshift offices in containers, this major
project appears alongside the main concentration of the dump.
Where previously hills of refuse and recyclables rose, with teams of
pickers sifting through the debris, the Justice Center was envisioned
as a central meeting place for access to legal and administrative
support. Now a stagnant symbol of the works-in-progress, dirt piles
join the trash, cleared with the help of OPISU, and lighting fixtures
enhance the illumination of a once darkened area. This parcel is on
the Northeastern edge of the large vacant area of land slated for a
number of larger projects, as well as housing on the opposite end of
the expanse. New sidewalks promise greater accessibility, steps from
the short, dirt road extension of the Avenida Eva Perón and seems
programmed as a functional entry-way plaza for the barrio. On the
northeastern edge of Costa Esperanza and the western edge of
Costa del Lago, this point is close to a geographical center of the
settlement as a whole, with quick access to the formal neighborhood
and infrastructure, as well as the land expanses snaking between the
highway and the settlement.

the slogan “El Estado en tu Barrio” (“the state in your neighborhood”), mingled with tokens of
exchange with residents, including the colorful spray-painted artwork adorning the containers, a
swing set, and a portable latrine (Site Visit Observation, January 2019).

67
 After initial cleanup of the dump site, much smaller now than before, the lagoon, and the
adjacent border canals, OPISU cordoned off a large swath of the bordering land. Industrial
production equipment, backhoes, and construction materials were housed here behind the small
office outpost, and were already being put to use in accordance with Master Planning documents.
OPISU continued work through the fall and winter of 2019 (southern hemisphere), and by the time
of the national presidential primary in August, constructed the Justice Center- an encounter point
for resident access to legal services from questions over property to conflict resolution, recreational

Visual 32: Views from the car of Plaza Mercedes Sosa, in

many ways a gateway to the neighborhood and gathering
place for commerce and social gatherings for the Visual 33: Upon entering the neighborhood and
surrounding neighborhoods. Note the lack of sidewalk leaving the car to inspect OPISU developments and
infrastructure as the neighborhood becomes “informal” connect with residents and workers. The above image
along with the location of key infrastructure, such as shows the auto-construction of housing, as well as
electricity wires, in perhaps dangerous locations which intervention of the OPISU to build the sport
interfere with the full potential of the space. Lighting is installation, connected by narrow, dirt and gravel
present here, as well as shade and infrastructure for child passages with barely enough width for two small cars.
care. The scaled-down height of both the buildings and the
utility infrastructure is apparent.
implements along the border road and within the settlement, and was continuing construction of
community-center buildings equipped with classrooms for educational programming and
neighborhood gatherings and service provision. (J. Arosena, Personal Communication, Site visits
August 23, 2019 and January 24, 2020).
This physical implementation progress was impressive in just a few short months. With the
expansion of the neighborhoods under OPISU’s purview, however, and many of the original
planning pushes completed, projects were now fighting through the management stages.
Institutional changes were apparent, with those originally walking neighborhoods and collecting
information now coordinating among a multiplicity of project objectives. Teams on the ground
remained to carry forward local goals, whereas colleagues were required to devote increasing time to

68
office-work in the downtown CABA offices. Following the uncertainty of a possible change of
political party at the national level, questions lingered over the long-term viability of programs
designed over the past year and half. Though teams continued diligently with their projects, stress
levels were elevated by the atmosphere of uncertainty. After the election of the TODOS ticket of
Fernandes and Kirchner, both nationally and in the Province in October 2019, changes were clearly
coming. In January 2020, many operations were halted, and the former head of OPISU was no
longer in charge, replaced by the new government whose mandate remained to be revealed. (J.
Arosena, Personal Communication, August 23 2019 and January 24, 2020).

Chapter 5: Voices of Practice in Metrobús and OPISU

The goal of this research is to weave together the experiences of the OPISU upgrading
effort in the Costa Esperanza settlements with those of the Ruta 8 Metrobús and the transit
professionals which contributed to its conception, planning, and implementation. Understood
through the interview communications and embodied knowledge of the people, not institutional
abstractions, carrying out this work- in the neighborhoods, speaking with residents, analyzing data,
discussing with colleagues, and participating in the larger narrative arc of their respective projects
embedded in historical context- a picture of the limitations and opportunities of this collective
understanding emerges. Serving as vital intermediaries between the rationalized objectives and
powerful decision-makers with access to a wealth of information driving its practice, and equally
valuable individual and collective forces constructing meaning and livelihoods which interact with
these larger structures, the insights and attitudes formed and acted upon by professionals in the field
are keys to evaluating the impacts and the efficacies of the work they do.

69
 This analysis therefore systematizes the relationships between the operations and the
objectives of OPISU and of the Metrobús staff. It is not within the capacity of this research to
elaborate a comprehensive program of revised metrics for transportation and settlement
development projects. However, it is not shy of elevating knowledge which may guide the practice
of such projects in the future, revealing particularized insights otherwise obfuscated by mechanized
data analysis or faulty assumptions. Concerned not only with the efficiency and concrete outcomes
of the Metrobús and OPISU projects, but also with their conceptions of themselves through shared
practice and their recognition of common purpose, the conversations recorded here map connective
tissues previously unexplored in this particular circumstance. Through this mapping, a vast,
productive territory for examining the motivations, assumptions, and dynamics of public transit and
settlement infrastructure delivery beckons. The formal structures governing these shared knowledges
serve to break down counter-productive limitations and catalyze the creative energies of
practitioners. An embodiment of the Community of Practice they shared, and revealed in part
through this research, a set of common goals and praxis takes shape, and carves out the necessary

Visual 34: Front and rear views of the Route 670 bus along its Eva Peron trajectory. Though there is no clear
identifier besides the frontal destination signage, this appears to be the 670 Cartel Verde, meaning this
particular bus began its route west of Costa Esperanza, looped south around the settlement, and then north
along Avenida Eva Perón. From here it should turn right onto Calle Los Pinares, a block from the southern
boundary of Costa del Lago and 8 de Mayo, call at stops along the Mitre train line in Chilavert and Ballester,
and return through the Partido of San Martín, connecting with Ruta 8 on the way and terminating at the San
Martín train station. Note the condition of the sidewalks and curbs on the “formal” side of the street, and the
width almost capable of supporting two-way bus traffic with dodging needed for parked cars along the street.

70
space for identifying further barriers to embedding values of efficiency and physical production in
perspectives of inclusivity, equity, and commitment to benefitting those they serve.
It is important to understand the contours of the bodies of knowledge harbored by
practitioners, as interviews confirmed how such harvested information directly impacted decision
making in terms of the location and orientation of corridor projects. Though informed by resident
and stakeholder engagement, this information was gathered in large part once projects had already
been initiated. Dominant methods for project prioritization, therefore, rested largely within the
parameters of rationalized datapoints. Part of the strength of this type of analysis, of course is the

Visual 35: Approaching the Ruta 4-Ruta 8 roundabout on Ruta. Buses

share the road with heavy traffic around this key traffic node. Though
perhaps separate lines, both buses in the frame appear to be the same
colectivo company. Indeed, all routes photographed during site visits not
along Metrobús routes were of this same colectivo company. Leading up
to the roundabout there is little traffic regulation signaling.
Visual 36: View from the intersection of Avenida Eva Perón and Ruta 4 before turning southwest toward the
rotunda connecting Ruta 4 with Ruta 8. According to OPISU staff, this forms one of the favored routes for
pedestrians and vehicle travel alike, and serviced by local and regional colectivo routes, including the 670. Though
not prioritized for major infrastructure projects such as the Metrobús, evidence of mode-share programming, such
as widened pedestrian and bicycle rights-of-way. Land use approaching the rotunda is commercial, with parking
and loading areas making up the major street frontage, with businesses out of the picture frame. On the left, a
grassy median between the north and southbound traffic divides Ruta 4, populated with lighting fixtures and
mature trees. Based on these observations, Metrobús infrastructure would not be prohibitive in terms of space
needed, given productive relationships with commercial interests along the route.
assimilation of large quantities of information, mapped to understand the travel patterns of millions
of people each day. Transportation planners, well versed in analytical tools and equipped with founts
of large quantities of rider data from the SUBE system and mapping software, therefore cited readily
countable information as primary in Metrobús routing. The number of buses circulating in the area,
the quantity of card taps by stop location, and the amount of time it took to buses to pass through a
given corridor made up the quantifiable basis of transit behavior. These data were then
supplemented with population signifiers in the area, such as socioeconomic data, assuming that
more affluent areas would prefer private automobile infrastructure, as well as population density
measurements- higher densities providing more suitable conditions for effective transit intervention.

71
The physical characteristics of an area, such as the width of rights-of-way, or “geometry,” also
entered the analysis as well as documented presence of other modes of travel or infrastructures
which would support public transit provision in the area (M. Goia, J.P. Salina, et. al., M. J. Vazquez,
E. Fevre, Personal Communications, August 21, 2019 and January 17, 2020). Modeled through
transit simulation programs, and grafted onto development priorities prioritizing radial routes over
transversals in the province, these decisions received final approvals filtered through institutional
dynamics, including the efficacy of relationships from the federal level down through the municipal
hierarchies (E. Fevre and M. López Menéndez, Personal Communications, January 29, 2020 and
January 23, 2020).
These factors had demonstrable effects in the decision-making transit routes which defined
the travel behavior in and around CC8. The two major transversal routes, for example, which might
have served vital network linkage functions for those living in the area, wee Ruta 4 and the Camino
de Borde. Encircling the settlement- a highly dense, under-resourced area with heightened levels of
residents living in poverty, the area would be on the radar of transit planners based on basic data
analytics. As densified outposts in peripheral areas, however, and considering the limitations of
movement particular to precarious settlement living, measurements of aggregate demand may be
underestimated by planning tools. Lack of density was expressly cited as a reason not to pursue
more intensive transit improvements along the Camino de Borde, and greater intensity of existing
transit activity, as well as more amenable physical constraints contributed to the prioritization of
Metrobús plans along Ruta 4- not in the vicinity of Costa Esperanza, but further south (M. Goia,
Personal Communication, August 21, 2020). Additionally, anticipation of productive relationships
with municipalities further south appear to have guided planners to locate the Ruta 4 Metrobús
priority there, in parallel to decisions governing the original planning of the Ruta 8 project staging
(M. López Menéndez, January 23, 2020). These decision-making parameters appear at once to
prioritize data analysis and simulation of existing transit behavior, catalyzed by the degree of
fragmentation or cooperation envisioned through the planning process. For OPISU, though
practitioners had access and ability with sophisticated tools, their strength came from the
particularized, relational knowledge gained from firsthand engagement (J. Arosena, Personal
Communication, January 24, 2020). Understanding the value of both these knowledge sets in order
to create networked systems sensitive to the particularities of precarious living, within the larger
metropolitan structure, was therefore essential for both institutional operations. The next sections
will therefore document the degrees to which this collaboration was carried out, and demonstrate

72
the accrued benefits of complex knowledge, as well as the insufficiencies which constrained the full
impact of work.

Direct Coordination and Common Purpose

Perhaps the most directly observable object of analysis linking OPISU with the Metrobús
development along their borders, the lack of evidence of personal interaction, let alone collaboration
on professional projects, between members of each entity is telling. The limited reach of interview
subjects notwithstanding, a direct meeting between Metrobús and OPISU planners in a professional
capacity for the purpose of information sharing and collaboration surfaced only once. The details of
this meeting, in response to a specific prompt, involved OPISU planners approaching the planning
division of transportation ministry in
order to notify them of inadequacies
current corridor paving plans, sharing
their specific area knowledge to improve
infrastructure outcomes for residents.
As revealed through this interaction,
Visual 37: View turning into the street dividing Costa del Lago these decisions percolated through the
(right) and Costa Esperanza. This stretch of dirt street is an auto-
constructed extension of Avenida Eva Perón, one of the main municipal, federal, and Province
streets of the formal neighborhood which extends southeast from
the settlement, crossing both Ruta 4 and then Ruta 8 on the eastern planning divisions, ultimately requiring
side of the rotunda and continuing almost to the edge of the CABA.
Note the banner announcing the entry into state-monitored space, as municipal approval and implementation
well as the difficult physical barriers to entry from the formal Eva of such informed directives. (M. Goia,
Perón street. The presence of cars which appear to be parked in
makeshift driveways shows little departure from formal typologies. Personal Communication, August 21,
Taken upon the bumpy entrance from the intersection of Avenida
Eva Perón and Las Petunias, there is only one block separating the 2019). Though no evidence of follow-up
“formal” neighborhood from the dump site and the large expanse of
land bordering the Buen Ayre highway. or continuation of such collaborative
strategies was recorded in the course of this research, this finding does at least provide evidence of
considered sharing of valuable insight among planning organizations. Direct evidence of the
implementation of these interactions may exist, though would be diffused through the multiple
levels of decision making internally at the federal, and ultimately at the municipal level.
Curiously, the other, directly observable aspect of interaction between OPISU and Metrobús
personnel occurred through non-professional social networks. Throughout the interview process,
internal social knowledge of team members within institutions appeared quite robust on a name-
recognition basis. Indeed, the interview methodology depended on snowball recommendations from

73
trusted fellow professionals with the horizontal knowledge of each other required to suitably
recommend further interviewees. Evidence of concentration of social and cultural capital among
rising young urban professionals in Buenos Aires was apparent in strong intra-institutional links
among interview subjects. On an inter-institutional basis, however, this concentration came about
informally only in one instance when the surprising fact that a high-ranking OPISU official and a
key member of the Metrobús team shared an enduring childhood friendship which they maintained
through their respective careers (Personal Communication, August 21, 2019). Exchanged through
the communication of the purpose and method of the research project in the conversational
interview setting, these strong bonds between those engaged in planning and development in
Buenos Aires often slip below the level of analysis. Though in this particular case, this powerful
channel of common purpose seemed dormant in terms of professional interaction, these types of
informal links can serve as productive stores of reflective practice if guided by common goals of
inclusivity and equity.
Beyond these direct interactions, both OPISU and Metrobús officials provided indirect
recognition of the network of institutional actors and their roles in the decision-making process.
Despite their common membership within this framework, the “separation” between OPISU and
Metrobús projects remained the emphatic note. (F. Giachetti, Personal Communication, August 20,
2019). Both sets of officials knew about the ongoing operations of multiple institutional actors from
a range of government levels, including local municipalities, Province-level entities such as OPISU
and COMIREC, and federal projects such as the Metrobús, but remained uncertain of the structure
or plans upon which they operated. Both Metrobús planning and works divisions were able to
communicate the existence, and basic purview or intentions of OPISU, but no evidence of shared
authority or prolonged collaboration was discussed. (F. Giachetti and M. Goia, Personal
Communication, August 20, 2019 and August 21, 2019. From the local team perspective, OPISU
staff seemed aware of certain aspects of the progress of Metrobús project along Ruta 8, including
original planning intentions, its division between the Tres de Febrero and San Martín municipalities,
and the extent of its connective capacity between the Camino de Buen Ayre and the CABA city
limits, but this knowledge seemed to spring from its appearance, media coverage, or public
announcements from government officials. (J. Arosena, Personal Communication, January 24,
2020).
Metrobús and OPISU officials also shared only a limited awareness of intimately linked
projects which directly affected their internal planning. For example, the Camino de Borde project,

74
directed by COMIREC, was included in OPISU’s own planning documents for CC8- an essential
demarcation line for construction and movement within and between neighborhoods in the area
(OPISU, November 2018). Despite this documented evidence of collaboration, by the end of 2019,
shared knowledge had evaporated among staff still working in the neighborhood as physical
construction ceased. Expressed with little hope in the value of pursuing further knowledge,
communication lines appeared severed (J. Arosena, Personal Communication, January 24, 2020).
Only high-ranking federal transit officials were able to communicate a degree of attention to the
progress of the Camino de Borde, but even here, the internal planning operation of COMIREC
remained veiled (M. López Menéndez, Personal Communication, January 23, 2020).
Whether the result of institutional design, the intensity of focus on internal projects, or
inadequate attention to communication channels, these results exemplify the crystallization of
fragmentary regional development. Such barriers to shared knowledge towards common purpose
not only decrease the relevant information available for practitioners and the residents they serve,
but contribute to the sense of stunted progress, as the accomplishments of individual teams suffer
from their inability to ripple through broader spheres of influence. This in turn can have stultifying
effects for residents on the benefits earned, contributing further to disappointment and shifting
attitudes for future projects.
Visual 38: Arriving at the settlement along Calle
114. This street enters the settlement on the
eastern edge of the Plaza Mercedes Sosa and
technically in the 8 de Mayo neighborhood of the
settlement. The clear between the “formal” and
“informal” boundaries is illustrated by the paving
of streets, which ends abruptly at the
neighborhood boundary. Noting the street and
activity, the presence of commercial and/or
transport vehicles indicate the ongoing
commercial activity along the street, as well as
parking along both sides of the street. Though
tighter than the large avenues, these streets are
wide enough to support colectivo traffic, and
even boast natural shade from trees. Finally, note
the collection of water in areas of depression,
worsening as the streets convert to dirt and
gravel. The division between “formal” and
“informal” in this case, seems not to
fundamentally alter the use of the street, but
rather the difficulty of that use.

These effects are translated through very material development contributions. Despite
organizational silos, the decisions made on infrastructure and the ability to carry them out in an
effective, integrated fashion, necessarily involves all actors. The question of street paving, an

75
example of an intervention for which limited resources are available, the judicious application of
which affects the full local and furthermore regional connectivity available for multiple transport
modes, depends on the effective communication of organizations on the ground with and intimate,
relational understanding of neighborhood life. For example, OPISU staff, understanding the
movement patterns of residents, was able to identify the “principal” road in Costa del Lago, a

Visual 39: View looking northwest along the unpaved extension of Calle 119 within Costa del Lago. Here the narrow,
dirt paths still serve as important thoroughfares of commercial and residential work with cars and trucks competing to
traverse this long, narrow street unfit for direct two-way traffic, let alone street parking. No sidewalk infrastructure is
available, and impediments spill further into the right-of-way. Auto-constructed buildings are only separated by a few
meters, with evidence of continued construction lying along the public way. Evidence of motorized traffic at the end
of the street shows the full extent of personal transit activity here. In the distance, the view of the Buen Ayre highway
includes waste transports likely on their way to CEAMSE, and agonizingly disconnected from employment sources
within the neighborhood.
northwest extension of Calle 119 from San Martín into the settlement, as one of three essential
paving operations to take place. Without their profound knowledge of the use of the street, its
relative width compared to other settlement avenues, and the access point to a section of the lagoon
where some of the more precarious residents would disproportionately benefit from infrastructure
(J. Arosena, Personal Communication, January 24, 2020), the misallocation of federal or municipal
resources would have long-term detrimental effects not only on traffic patterns, but the larger
efficacy of adequate service provision to especially vulnerable sections of the settlement,
perpetuating regional inequalities.
In another episode, OPISU demonstrated the value of the long-term commitment provided
by staff in the most individual of circumstances. As reported, the “interruption” of streets by
members of a family which had constructed two houses presented a challenge requiring patience and
deep relational understanding, as the solution involved relocating a living area for the benefit of
opening the street. Without the trust and persistence of OPISU staff, as well as the resources at their
disposal to offer compensation by providing materials and support for the reconstruction of the
house in a favorable area (J. Arosena, Personal Communication, January 24, 2020), severe damage to

76
the dual goals of networked transit effects in the settlement and a secure family life was avoided.
Though only the accounts and priorities of OPISU are captured in this version of the event, it is an
important example of how serious, individualized attention has profound effects on too easily
rationalizable aspects of traffic flow, for which knowledge transfer back and forth is indispensable to
reduce harm.

Public Communication and Information Gathering

These structures of understanding and advocacy are especially necessary given the
contrasting approaches by the Metrobús and OPISU models for resident engagement, and even

Visual 40: View of Calle Las Rosas, the only historically paved street within Costa Esperanza according to
OPISU staff. This provides evidence of auto-formalization within the neighborhood prior to the arrival of
OPISU, as well as the vibrant coexistence of small businesses, some sidewalk infrastructure, auto-constructed
multi-level houses, and cars. People choose to walk on the paved street instead of along the blocked
sidewalk. Despite this strong common space programming, there is no evidence of public lighting provided
along the street.
more crucially for voices marginalized by precarious living or economic arrangements. Where the
deliberate inclusion of settlement voices was a core organizing principle for OPISU, dedicated solely
to peripheral settlements, strengthening knowledge sharing channels in this particular area may have
contributed to enhanced equity outcomes in the Metrobús engagement process. The scope of the
Metrobús undertaking, leveraging limited resources toward maximum impact, was sophisticated
enough to aggregate key data points and appeared to build moderate levels of local consensus.
However, evaluations of the complementary benefits of specialization between OPISU and the
Metrobús processes in this case reveal significant opportunities overlooked for deepening both
accessibility outcomes for the most vulnerable peripheral residents, and building broader
constituencies for long-term action.

77
 Initiated years before a regional commitment to settlement integration mandated through
OPISU, Ruta 8 Metrobús planning as described through interviews, reflected a highly localized,
case-by-case approach to public outreach. All members of the Metrobús staff expressed an
awareness and informed concern for the predicament presented by settlement residents. The most
Visual 42: Despite the absence of larger
institutional presences, elements of
social cohesion and culture exist in the
form of churches, which stand out as
vital loci of community support. As
collective institutions, they command
not only greater space, but traditional
methods of enforced privacy through
walls and gates to house space for
private vehicles, alongside larger
structures and private open spaces
within the walls.

Visual 43: Demarcation and

Visual 41: View of a kiosco and
institutionalization of space
east down the "formal" Las Rosas
along Calle las Rosas within
street at the intersection of Avenida
Costa Esperanza. Despite the
Eva Perón. The intersection
lack of formal titling, residents
contains evidence of clear
are creating their own markers
discrepancies at the distance of a
of propertied space in the
few meters, as the paved edge of
form of replicating addresses,
the "informal" side of the
with reference points from the
intersection is in disrepair and
formal urban landscape.
lacking a curb, whereas on the
other side the curb, sewer system,
electricity, and official street signs
are evident.

developed understanding of settlement engagement was offered by transit planning officials who
described a multi-layered process. Popular methods included an “encuesta” process to poll residents
in affected territories which did not exclude settlements, but understood them as part of larger
neighborhood agglomerations (M. Goia, Personal Communication, August 21, 2019). These
agglomerations were informed by broader statistical tools, such as “census data,” and included key
demographic metrics, including socioeconomic status and “poverty” levels, and information on
“origins and destinations” (M. Goia and J.P. Salina, et. al., Personal Communication, August 21,
2019 and January 17, 2020). To create “model parameters,” defined as 500 meters in each direction
around the proposed transit route, planners relied on data sets available from SUBE card boarding.
As the integrated tap-card system used throughout the region, this data provided key insights,
though necessarily excluded disembarkation information. In theory, this data considers passengers
living in settlement areas, though there is no way to dissimilate these categories except for broader

78
qualifiers such as subsidized passes or adjacency to areas shown by demographic data to support
higher levels of poverty. From this data, color-coded maps of “zones of influence,” supplemented
by the targeted information gathered from the “encuestas” created a graphical picture of the area
(J.P. Salina, et. al., Personal Communication, January 17, 2020).
Though planners emphasized the importance of gathering first-hand knowledge of areas
slated for transit projects, including extensive site-visits to analyze traffic and land use, and aerial
drone images to incorporate surrounding areas, these visits were restricted to a “minimum” contact
with people (Personal Communications: J.P. Salina, et. al., January 17, 2020; E. Fevre, January 29,
2020). Instead, ongoing contact with those affected by the project was managed under the stage of
implementation under the purview of the transit works department. During this stage, a “social
team” fielded questions and concerns, mostly from those directly affected along the route- often
small business owners in the case of peripheral radial corridors such as Ruta 8 dominated by
commercial or light industrial uses (Personal Communications: F. Giachetti, Personal
Communication, August 20, 2019; E. Fevre, January 29, 2020). In fact, the only Metrobús project to
include a dedicated social outreach department was the La Matanza route, the first route in the
Province, and completed by the national government in partnership with the World Bank (E. Fevre,
Personal Communication, August 21, 2019).
The La Matanza route was thus special in a number of ways. The longest Metrobús route yet
completed, it stretches through the massive, densely settled Matanza area, a peri-urban
conglomeration which, taken by itself, would be the second largest city in Argentina besides the
CABA (City Population, Argentina, 2020). The Metrobús reinforced the spine of the area, connecting
centrifugal neighborhoods with the CABA along this central radial. Densely populated, precarious
settlements were located directly along the route, and at its farthest extent, it involved extensive
engagement with a locus of informal market activity, redesigning the transit center to accommodate
and benefit the exchange of both goods and transit modes. Its public engagement included “walking
the streets” along the route, “speaking with neighbors,” and developing a robust image of the “social
environment” through communication aided by “mobile consultations” (C. Sanguinetti, Personal
Communication, August 21, 2019).
Thus, given the close geographic proximity between the Metrobús project along Ruta 8 and
the OPISU area of influence, just a few blocks away, the benefits of intensified collaboration are
manifold. Long-term engagement with residents in the CC8 area equipped OPISU with valuable
information essential to the outcomes of the Metrobús transit project. Most directly, perhaps, was

79
information about the state of bus stops along the edge of the settlement, upon which most
residents depended as their link to the larger transit system. Revealed by time spent on-site, as well
as sensitive conversations which delve into the particular difficulties of settlement life, the rash of
robberies exacerbated by insufficient stop infrastructure at these invaluable points of encounter,
transit officials could make more prudent decisions regarding the allocations of stop and route
infrastructure to benefit a large population of transit-dependent
riders, but also would have understood the nuances built into
SUBE card data- fluctuations in when and where riders would
board based on avoiding dangerous situations (J. Arosena, Personal
Communication, January 24, 2020). Further, information gleaned
from targeted engagement efforts in the neighborhood later
revealed dissatisfactions with related aspects of transit service itself,
including driver behavior and training, which was an essential
Visual 44: At once an example of
small commercial activity within the aspect for the Ministry of Transport management division, tasked
precarious settlement as well as a
locus for SUBE card charging. This
with training drivers to adapt to Metrobús systems (F. Giachetti,
small cleaning materials business Personal Communication, August 20, 2019; IDB, 2020).
replicates a model widespread in
Buenos Aires of small kioscos or In their role as institutionalized advocates for the interests
corner stores providing charging
infrastructure for the SUBE transit of settlement residents, OPISU staff may have imparted living and
tap-card service. It is unknown, yet
extremely unlikely that locations working patterns, allowing Metrobús planners to assimilate these
such as these have the cards
themselves for sale, but it is evidence
interests in route structuring and scheduling. Still more valuable,
of widespread usage and need for perhaps, would be developing contact between residential leaders in
SUBE stations within the barrio.
the settlement and transit planners, as OPISU understood many of
the dynamics governing resident self-organization. Identification of certain spokespeople in each
“area of influence,” for Metrobús planners was a strategy in their engagement process. Without
formal institutional organization, this process was more complicated in settlement areas. For this
very reason, however, collaboration with OPISU could have established links with settlement
leaders, whether in the form of “nodes” of women organized to provide services, or information
sharing through Whatsapp platforms as the primary method of digital communication. OPISU’s
own plans for establishing central loci of civil service, such as the Justice Center, as well as an
understanding of the employment-centered movement of settlement residents in order to access
recycling opportunities in and around CEAMSE would provide transit planners with a road map for
effective future route planning, understanding resident movement patterns and facilitating access to

80
the transit system by devoting infrastructure resources to these nodes of activity (J. Arosena,
Personal Communication, January 24, 2020). In turn, OPISU and the residents they spoke with each
day would have benefitted from valuable information provided by transit planners, from
understanding how and where to access the transit system through SUBE card delivery or route
changes, which caused significant disruption in resident life as the result of Metrobús
implementation (IDB, 2020).

Urban Totality and Network Effects

These insufficiencies of institutional collaboration further amplify frustrations upon an

understanding of the totality of the urban transformations each project involved. For their part, the
OPISU planning process strove to incorporate larger patterns of regional mobility, facilitated by the
paving of strategic streets, as well as the connection of peripheral neighborhoods through the
Camino de Borde (OPISU, November 2018; J. Arosena, Personal Communication, January 24,
2020). Staff also took on complex infrastructural improvement projects, from implementation of
water and sewer lines, to the provision of electricity, including difficult planning and land use
decisions provoked by a potentially dangerous high-tension line stretching above a corridor of
homes in Costa Esperanza, which required negotiations with the power company for either moving
Visual 45: Sections along the
upper Ruta 8 route without
stations include about a meter-
wide piece of grassy median
between buses and private vehicle
traffic. Above, three buses from
the colectivo company Nueva
Metropol wait for the signal
change. Note the bus signal
priority- the bus light is a few
seconds ahead of the rest of the
traffic (orange and red lights
signal the light is about to turn
green, while the solid red light
remains for private vehicle traffic.
Extensive lighting along the entire
corridor is evident here, as well as
signage related to the hospital
infrastructure along the route.
Below, the colectivo 78, operated
by Los Constituyentes S.A.T. is
shown, one of the more vital
routes in the region and along
Ruta 8.

the line, or relocating residents (J. Arosena, Personal Communication, January 24, 2020). These

81
 Visual 46: Metrobús station infrastructure along the section of Ruta 8 northwest of the roundabout. These
stations represent the final phases of the first Ruta 8 Metrobús project in collaboration with the Tres de
Febrero partido. The stations are about four bus-lengths long and feature stops for multiple colectivo routes,
as advertised on station signage. The platforms are raised and covered to ease exposure to weather and
smoother boarding. In these sections, no medians separate the station infrastructure from the rest of the
street, which maintains car and truck rights-of-way up to three lanes wide. In some sections, wide grass-
covered medians separate the route as a whole from feeder roads and commercial and residential uses,
testifying to the breadth of the corridor as a whole. Note as well the stop named for a nearby hospital.

Visual 47: View of upper Ruta 8 at the Gabino Visual 48: This is a typical view of the route along upper Ruta 8
Ezeiza stop, where the Calle Gabino Ezeiza approaching from one of the intervening side-streets. The use
meets the route (also named Eva Perón), at an of motorcycles is emphasized here, as well as breaks in the
acute angle in the opposite direction of Ruta 8 Metrobús infrastructrue at points to allow for cross-avenue
traffic. Here, curb-cuts and crosswalks are traffic. This particular road ends as it reaches Ruta 8, with the
available, though attempt to follow the natural logical continuation street on the other side slightly offset.
diagonal street crossing. Some use bicycles, but
along the sidewalk with no bicycle infrastructure
along the sidewalk.
projects, once scrutinized for their network effects, interact intimately with the corridor
improvement projects contained within Metrobús projects. Interviews with Metrobús officials

82
repeatedly emphasized the “totality” or full “transformation” of the corridors in question, from
public street lighting, to management of waterways, to creating corridor crossings and pedestrian
infrastructure where none had existed (F. Giachetti and E. Fevre, Personal Communications, August
20, 2019 and January 29, 2020). Understanding this full picture provokes researchers, planners, and
residents alike to understand the Metrobús project not as a narrowly-defined transit project, but as a
comprehensive corridor improvement project- fundamentally altering land use patterns, service
provision, and market behaviors for commercial, industrial, and residential occupants within blocks
of the avenue receiving the Metrobús system. These larger network effects extend to the operations
of essential services, for example medical care, where dedicated bus lanes are authorized for use by
emergency vehicles, and stops correspond with hospital entrances (E. Fevre, Personal
Communication, January 29, 2020; Personal Observation, January 20, 2020). Alterations of parking
and car repair patterns along these previously under-programmed throughways further transforms

Visual 49: Satellite image of location at the San Martín station with
larger context including the provincial Partidos of San Martín, Tres
Febrero, and others in in the first municipal ring around CABA. This
image shows clearly the relative distance between the municipal heart
of San Martín and the settlements located to the northeast within the
Reconquista river basin and along the Buen Ayre highway. Ruta 4
runs parallel with much of the highway and the General Paz highway,
which serves as the barrier between CABA and the Provincia. In
between the location marker and the CABA, and in close proximity to
the train station there, is the UNSAM campus. Closer to the
northeastern edge of San Martín is the Jose Leon Suarez station
(contained within the Jose Leon Suarez letters on the map), the final
stop on the Mitre train line, and the closest station to Costa
Esperanza and neighboring settlements. This image thus provides a
striking picture of the location of the settlements- still connected by
Metropolitan mass transit infrastructure, yet perched on the periphery
of the first metropolitan ring. Encroaching deeper into the
Reconquista river basin, and across from the CEAMSE landfill which
covers a good portion of the undeveloped space on the other side of
the highway, the degree of isolation of the settlement can be
calibrated.

83
 Visual 50: Satellite images along the route which began along Ruta 8 and doubles into and through the Partido of
San Martin. The municipal building and Plaza San Martín mark the heart of the partido, where there is a
concentration of bus transit stops as shown on the map. Progressing still further and zooming out, the image on
the right shows the eastern edge of the Partido, bordered on the Southeast by the main UNSAM campus, which
fronts to the East in turn the Avenida General Paz and thus the CABA. This image shows particularly well how
Ruta 8 turns into the partido, turns back south toward CABA, and hitches once more in its progress toward the
Avenida San Martín within the CABA. This demonstrates the difficulty of designing a route which connects the
larger radial Metrobús routes while maintaining larger station implements and dedicated lanes.

their character, providing space for urban interventions such as linear parks (E. Fevre, Personal
Communication, August 21, 2019).
These considerations only scratch the surface in terms of the full networked effects of both
the OPISU and Metrobús projects for residents of CC8 and peripheral settlements. Here,
collaboration between OPISU and Metrobús officials, in concert with municipalities, had an
opportunity to provide infrastructure linkages, both physical, such as improved guideways, and
informational, including signage, between the settlement and the nearby Metrobús corridors.

84
 Visual 51: These are typical views of side-
streets from the vantage point of upper
Ruta 8 as they empty out onto the larger
route. As shown, some have crosswalks
and curb cuts, despite a state of slight
disrepair, and the streets themselves may
be one-way, but have space for street
parking on both sides. There are also
feeder driveways separating the larger
Ruta 8 from the storefronts, and large
grassy areas in-between Ruta 8 and the
driveways. Also, beyond the small
commercial and mixed-used street
frontages, small residential typologies
proceed into the neighborhood, including
a smattering of mid-rise residential.

Visual 52: View of the uses available

along the wide median areas between
Ruta 8 and the frontages along the route.
Here, sheltered by a grove of naturally
distributed mature trees, there is space
for play structures.

Understanding how residents moved in the area, such as preferring the Avenida Eva Perón corridor
as an access route between the settlement and surrounding neighborhoods, presented an
opportunity to ferry residents more effectively toward Metrobús, or design ways to allow routes to
take fuller advantage of these frontiers of contact. Dependent in particular on the 670 bus, the only
one which passes along the border of the settlement, within walking distance, coordination of
improvements to optimize this route for residents would significantly improve quality of life in the
neighborhood (J. Arosena, Personal
Communication, January 24, 2020). Alternatively,
the Metrobús project re-routed buses lines, such
as the 78- a key connector not only with the
center of San Martín, but with the CABA itself-
Visual 53: This image shows the alternative, also well- down the Ruta 8 corridor. Though perhaps
represented in the neighborhood, of streets subject to
pooling from insufficient drainage even in paved areas. improving the overall speed and efficiency of the
Transportation often excluded from modern
transportation planning, horse-drawn vehicles, are also route itself, residents were cut off from accessing
present and a significant economic factor in daily life.
Though unpaved, evidence of street-lighting is present this line following the change, forced instead to
here, illustrating the ambiguous relationship of common
infrastructure within precarity, where certain elements
rely more on more expensive and often just as
are available, but not universal or widespread. unreliable private remis transportation for
essential trips (IBD, 2020).

85
 Finally, and most expansively, the network effects of the Metrobús down Ruta 8 were
designed specifically to speed up connections between peripheral areas and the CABA, or regional
center, along radial routes. This crystallization of the highest volume of employment travel patterns-
between the CABA and the periphery, not only fails to consider learning on the ground from
OPISU officials, but limits the
Visual 54: Along
Ruta 4, between the flexibility of the broader system to
roundabout heading
toward Jose León accommodate future shifts. For
Suárez, there are new
pedestrian and example, OPISU officials,
bicycle installations,
backgrounded by the
reinforced later by targeted survey
large commercial or accounts, were attuned to vital
light industrial
property typical employment relationships upon
along the route.
which CC8 residents depended,
dominated by construction,
Visual 55: Market
along Ruta 4, a major recycling services, domestic work,
destination for many
in the area. It is
and small craft operations (J.
separated from the Arosena, Personal
larger route by the
parking lot, a fence, Communication, January 24,
and a feeder driveway.
2020). Though residents would
certainly benefit from greater
access to relatively affluent sections of the CABA, this singular focus on funneling the periphery
toward the center failed to consider the livelihoods of waste pickers in CC8, for example, resigned to
difficult and often dangerous journeys across the Buen Ayre highway to CEAMSE, working in
peripheral construction operations, selling wares in the center of San Martín, or finding employment
in growing service and domestic sectors, including upper-class residential communities proliferating
further into the regional periphery, especially toward the north and east of the settlement (IBD,
2020).

Collaborative Barriers

Convergent with direct collaboration limitations on the full equity and efficiency impacts of
the Metrobús and OPISU projects, other barriers to consensus-building and smooth operations
surfaced in the course of interviews and site visits. Many of these frustrations are traceable to the
fragmentary nature of transit service provision and the particular responsibilities dispersed through

86
municipal divisions. As transit planners noted, a primary effect of the Metrobús system was to
funnel multiple bus lines, up to 15 in some cases, along single corridors, often requiring extensive
coordination between multiple separate bus companies with their own route allocation decisions to
make (F. Giachetti and J.P. Salina, et. al., Personal Communications, August 20, 2019 and January
17, 2020). For some routes, this could affect contractual relationships, depending on original route
characteristics and the jurisdictions each route traversed. Beyond the colectivos themselves, difficult
Visual 56: Corridor views
emphasizing the commercial, small
productive nature of the Metrobús
route along upper Ruta 8, and the
variety of Metrobús infrastructure,
ranging from narrow, raised
medians and concrete buffers
separating opposite bus directions.
Street space is still ample for
private vehicle and commercial
traffic, while some even ride
bicycles in the street due to
inadequate pedestrian and bike
infrastructure. Crossings are
available, but limited along the
route, as many cross-street
intersections are effectively
dedicated to car and bus traffic
only. Once again, the ubiquity of
corridor lighting is an often-cited
benefit of the project.
resource allocation decisions were a function of the Metrobús projects, where limited connections
with other modes such as the Subte and in certain cases direct competition between Subte and
Metrobús projects in the CABA surfaced (M. J. Vazquez, Personal Communication, August 21,
2019). Translated to the province, without the benefits of Subte coverage, competing modal choices
centered on growing private car preferences among the more affluent, and legacy train systems. The
proximity between the Metrobús on the Southwest edge of San Martín and the Mitre train line on
the Northeastern edge of the partido brought this competition for scarce resources into stark relief
(Personal Observation, January 20, 2019).
Further fragmentation along these municipal lines was a common worry expressed by transit
planners and OPISU officials alike. Devolution of responsibilities for the literal groundwork
necessary for transit projects, such as street paving, often complicated decision-making. Productive
collaboration was required between national, regional, and municipal officials to bring upgrading
projects to fruition, and relationships with municipalities often defined the geographic and
conceptual boundaries of a given project (E. Fevre and C. Sanguinetti, Personal Communication,

87
January 29, 2020 and August 21, 2019). Indeed, officials often pointed to the power of failures to
build relationships along these lines to make or break projects (E. Fevre and M. Goia, Personal
Communications, January 29, 2020 and August 21, 2019). Endowed with their own planning
bureaucracies and decision-making apparatus, planners engaged in connective national or regional
projects often relied on the development of municipal competencies and responsiveness, adding
elements of uncertainty to both timelines and quality specifications, especially considering peripheral
municipalities’ relative lack of the “money and capacity” in many cases, in addition to larger
administrative controls (J.P. Salina, et. al. and E. Fevre, Personal Communications, January 17, 2020
and January 29, 2020). In some cases, the resources needed for municipalities to carry out basic
paving and street programming operations required dispensation from partner organizations,
including OPISU (J. Arosena, Personal Communication, January 24, 2020). Municipal cooperation
with transit development operations were especially important for OPISU work, as the legacy of

Visual 57: View along Calle Las Petunias which serves as the border between the “formal” (left) and “informal”
neighborhoods. Note again the variety of vehicle use, including biking in the street, with clear physical barriers
to biking evident along the road. The lack of adequate sidewalk infrastructure especially on the “informal” side
is evident as well. Street lighting looks well distributed, though during the day an assessment of efficacy is not
possible. The general width of the street and debris and traffic which appear are clear barriers to public transit
travel, attesting to often reported jostling on colectivos and may cause unnecessary traffic delays. An important
aspect of this comparison is the relative similarity, in fact, between the opposing building typologies. Evidence
of auto-construction and more professionalized work is evident on both sides, though the slightly more jumbled
or in-progress aspect on the right may still alert the casual observer to a lapse in formal control. The mirroring
provides crucial insight into the intimate interactions between the “formal” and “informal” neighborhood,
feeding off of each other despite their resource imbalances.

88
their own impacts would ultimately pass to the jurisdiction of the municipalities as the final stage of
the settlement integration process (J. Arosena, Personal Communication, January 24, 2020).
Exacerbated by insufficient information sharing, limitations of data collection strategies
threatened the integrity of institutional learning toward practice. For example, the most extensive,
dynamic, and rationalized sources of ridership data, provided by the SUBE system, offered data only

Visual 58: Section looking North of Calle 119 and arriving at

the intersection with Las Petunias, where a bus stop is located
at the Costa del Lago welcome sign. According to OPISU
staff, this is a prime location for robberies. The narrow and
inundated streets are difficult to traverse. The bus stop,
though vital for settlement residents, shows no identifiable
markings, and no infrastructure to ease drivers or riders with
ease of embarkation.

on rider boarding, and not disembarking (M. Goia and J.P. Salina, et. al., Personal Communications,
August 21, 2019 and January 17, 2020). Not only did this require more intensive and alternative
learning to establish rider destination assumptions, but it resulted in an over-emphasis on rider
boarding as a proxy for transit intensity down to the station level. Though cutting-edge data
modeling from fare-card systems shows promise in estimating rider intentionality (Zhao, 2020), in-
depth research conducted by the IDB within Costa Esperanza revealed the multiple factors involved
in resident transit choices, including the locations from which they access the transit system. The
most striking examples from these findings are the common practice of avoiding overcrowded or
dangerous situations by walking further to catch the bus earlier in the route. Indeed, accessing
multiple modes of transit for residents involved extra legwork, even for remises which refuse to
enter the unstable dirt streets and required strict adherence to pickup scheduling leading to extra
distances and greater uncertainty for residents (IDB, 2020). These factors may contribute to
widespread misreading of SUBE card data throughout the system, and especially in settlement areas
where there is over-dependence on particular routes, as well as a misunderstanding of the extra pains
undertaken by residents in under-resourced areas to access basic services.
Relatedly, the conception of Metrobús design itself- dedicated corridors along radial routes,
required a certain threshold of operable public space, highly amenable to wide avenues such as 9 de

89
 Visual 59: Typical bus stop infrastructure available along the larger routes, and sometimes in important locations.
Though not self-contained structures buffered from wind, there is decent shade and seating, which families find
useful. In the background, the bicycle infrastructure continues, marking points of mode-share, and industrial land
use surrounds this high-use transit corridor. Two routes serving this stop are the 670 and the 237. The 237 is
featured at stops along both sections of the Ruta 8 Metrobús, while the 670, most vital for settlement residents,
only follows Ruta 8 closely toward the south as it approaches the heart of San Martín and the CABA. As shown
along the settlement boundaries, these basic stop infrastructure elements are not available, and often lack even
stop identification infrastructure.

Julio, but harder to negotiate in peripheral areas characterized by variable direction and relatively
tight capillary routes. As described in rider accounts, colectivo route design and driving behavior
responds to these constraints, starting and stopping, swerving, and negotiating rights of way as
nimbly as they can (IDB, 2020; Personal Observation, January 20, 2020). BRT projects are especially
designed to work in these conditions, providing greater space and priority for both buses and
passengers with higher-capacity vehicles and lanes. However, for settlement residents without direct
access to these amenable corridors, these benefits fail to reverberate through tight, contested
corridors often lacking adequate paving and programming. In these cases, the benefits of Metrobús
systems must be carefully considered, innovation applied wherever possible to compensate any
alterations to service in these underserved areas, already suffering from the precarity in transit
service itself. This precarity extends as well to the availability of information, which Metrobús made
attempts to improve through digital scheduling applications and signs along the transit route, but

90
was difficult to access within the broader transit network- especially for those lacking a deep
experiential understanding of transit route behavior (Personal Observation, January 20, 2020).

Accomplishments

The analytical function of critique must not only recognize examples of inadequacies, but
also the productive and broadly beneficial accomplishments of these regional relationships. For
example, beyond the time savings pollutant reductions cited by internal and external analyses of
Metrobús systems, reverberating benefits arising from the competencies of aligned transit
departments demand attention. As both Metrobús and OPISU officials emphasized, the combined
force of the infrastructure projects carried out in the Ruta 8-CC8 corner of the metropolitan area
were profound. Between these two projects, radial accessibility and basic infrastructure needs were
both addressed on a comprehensive basis, marshalling the resources of both the federal and
provincial governments to transform the land mass in a period of months to a few short years.
Improvements from public lighting, to foot traffic for local
businesses, to improved security and accessibility for women and
those with mobility challenges all contributed to the sense of
pride in their work clearly evident for interviewees. The creation
of accessible platform boarding with protection from the
elements, as well as street crossings, were accomplished in a few
short months (C. Sanguinetti, Personal Communication, August
Visual 60: View of Primero de Mayo 21, 2019). Despite clear areas for improvement, the difficulty of
station about equidistant between Ruta
4 and the Buen Ayre highway. Taken
planning for settlement areas was not ignored by transit planners,
around midday off-peak hours, there recognizing the disparate importance of transit project success in
is still a decent number of passengers
along the route, shaded by the such areas, as well as a demonstrated concern and attention paid
platform on a sunny day. This
particular section advertises at least 6 to the “rights” of those living in settlements, and a desire to
colectivo routes. In the foreground, a
simple, thin cement median separates connect them with opportunities in more dynamic sections of the
private vehicles from colectivos.
metropolitan area (F. Giachetti and E. Fevre, Personal
Communications, August 20, 2019 and August 21, 2019).
Through it all, transit professionals focused on the “total” interventions they could provide for
communities lacking access, motivated by an enduring desire to create “habitable” spaces to the best
of their abilities (E. Fevre, Personal Communication, August 21, 2019 and January 29, 2020).

91
Visual 61: Images of OPISU projects in the 8 de Mayo neighborhood. Importantly, these images not only serve
as literally concrete evidences of impact, but tell stories about the successes OPISU was able to achieve and the
significance of their presence. In the top left, the sports installation provides a meeting place for those young and
old within the neighborhood, but especially for the large population of young people. Though no one was using
it on this day, it represents a productive use on the spot which was allegedly a center of drug activity in the
neighborhood. The large green signs announcing the state’s role in carrying out this project are key markers of
government investment and the relationships sought throughout the OPISU process. Unfortunately, these
photos illustrate the completed, the work still remaining, and the works already showing signs of decline
following OPISU’s brief window of opportunity. Materials and signs of state involvement lie dormant within the
educational community center structure built with the assistance of OPISU, with questions remaining alongside
unused materials. The sign in the community room testifies to the real relationships which were developed
between barrio residents and OPISU staff and the feeling of loss stemming from yet another state project cut
short. Finally, the window shown in the bottom left appears to be sourced from a business along Ruta 8, a largely
commercial and light industrial route. This is evidence of the myriad threads linking the stakeholders along the
transit route and the projects forwarded in the settlement area, echoing the labor and errand dispersions through
the transit system itself.

92
Neighborhood Perspectives

Part of the capacity-building capability of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB, or

Banco Inter-Americano de Desarrollo, BID) was applied through OPISU in the form of a series of
transportation activity focus groups conducted within the neighborhoods over the course of
intervention there. Recently, the results of the focus groups have been assimilated into a full report,
which will be published in 2020. Permission has been granted for these results to be included as an
additional object of analysis in this study, providing a more direct glimpse into the particular modes
of transit behavior of individuals living in CC8. The focus groups were small, gender-divided
conversations in which residents answered survey questions about transit behavior, and were invited
to discuss their mobility experiences.

Visual 62: Arriving at the San Martín train station along the Mitre train line. The line runs along the Eastern edge of the
Partido, on the opposite side of Ruta 8 which houses the Metrobús. The center photo shows the station as an important
gathering point for many, whether traveling on the train, catching bus connections, for cars picking up passengers, or
meeting others. As shown in the rightmost photo, the bus crosses the train line perpendicularly, as does foot traffic fed
through limited public safety infrastructure. The train right-of-way includes two tracks running in opposite directions,
with station-houses on either side where passengers can enter, including personnel within the station-house.
Interestingly, the train infrastructure mirrors the Metrobús station infrastructure, without the need for the median and
without similar street-programming measures.

Despite the low number of total respondents, just over one hundred people, and skewed
toward women between the ages of 25 and 59, the resident stories and data provide an illuminating
picture of their own travel behavior, and that of their families. Among the more revealing findings,
residents identified primary destinations in and around the San Martín municipality, as well as others
in the urban ring, such as north toward San Isidro. The mode of choice for these trips is
overwhelmingly the colectivo, and the routes of the 670 line in particular, which is the only route

93
passing along the streets bordering the neighborhoods. Other high-use routes were the 338, or “La
Costañera,” and the 78. These three dominant routes serve distinct purposes- the 670 is composed
of a variety of capillary lines, which snake through San Martín and connect with neighboring areas,
including parts of Ruta 8, while the 338 is the route of choice along Ruta 4 to reach distant
municipal destinations around the urban ring. The 78 was the bus of choice to reach the CABA,
which connects the Metrobús Ruta 8 and the Metrobús Avenida San Martín, a radial route that
connects in the CABA with the Juan B. Justo transversal route in the north of the city. Another
particular destination of interest, especially in terms of employment, was CEAMSE, which though
geographically quite close to the settlement, required a long, dangerous route along the edges and
under a bridge beneath the Buen Ayre Highway, without any viable transit link (IDB, 2020).
Visual 63: Satellite image of disembarking point at Jose Leon
Suarez station. This was the meeting point with Coco for our
journey through the settlement, reinforcing this node as an
essential regional and local meeting point for those traveling on
foot, bus, and even car. This image illustrates the distance
between Ruta 8 and the Jose Leon Suarez train at this peripheral
point, and coincides quite clearly with the Ruta 4 route as a
logical avenue for regional connection.

Visual 64: The turnstile entry

infrastructure at the Jose León
Suárez station demonstrates 1)
the connective efficacy and style
of use of the SUBE card
network, which for the train is
the same tap-and-go system as in
the colectivos, and 2) the typical
direct-entry infrastructure typical
of the train system with limited
distance between the train and
entry points, similar in many
ways to the size of the Metrobús
station infrastructure.

The Metrobús as a system was hardly mentioned. In fact, certain detrimental effects of the
project surfaced in the focus groups. For example, the consolidation of various colectivo routes
along the Ruta 8 corridor projects caused a shift in essential route patterns, such as the 78 or the
237, which once had a stop quite close to many residents along the neighborhood borders. Once
accessible, these routes and stations were displaced, sometimes to 15-25 blocks away in locations
along the Metrobús corridor. In response to this vacuum of service, the 670 operating company
commissioned a new route to fulfill some of the route responsibilities upon which many settlement
residents depended. Some residents resorted to more expensive remis trips to compensate for such

94
decreases in colectivo accessibility- more direct, but restricting number of trips possible. Access to
the train at the nearby Jose León Suárez station was too far for residents to walk, though in some
cases men could get there by bicycle. Residents expressed an interest in taking the train as an
alternative to enter the CABA, but noted it was too expensive. Reaching the train connection at José
León Suárez itself required a trip by colectivo, lasting a little over 20 minutes, which was also a
primary destination for charging the SUBE cards needed to access the transit system (IDB, 2020).
It was these elements of particular accessibility, beyond route coverage itself, which were the
foci of many residents. Distance was one factor, but residents also noted the insecurity of walking in
the unpaved streets of the settlement, and lack of walking infrastructure. Combined with lack of
adequate public lighting, this led to fears of criminal activity or robberies, such as the robberies
reported at one of the main bus stops along the border of the settlement. Some of the most
dangerous areas were along the polluted canals, where bridges were destroyed to prevent flight.
These conditions required creative, yet often restrictive strategies, such as limited transit use to
certain hours to avoid dark or insecure situations. Other measures dealt with the insecurity of transit
itself, as many residents reported unsafe driving or harassment on buses, and overcrowding on

Visual 65: One of the primary methods of personalized

transportation within the settlement are remises, often
unmarked or unauthorized vehicle services. Though rarely
accessed from within the barrio, as apprehension for
entering due to safety or road stability concerns is
widespread, their advertisement within mark key access
points for those unable to access public transportation, or
preferring more direct service, including for emergency or
specialized trips. In the background, vehicles equipped for
emergency services or other urgent trips, as well as
capabilities for material hauling, are conspicuously joined
with remis services.

Visual 66: The 670 bus passes a

small shop offering remis services,
located along the side-streets near
the settlement. Here the width of
the street is too narrow to
accommodate two-way bus traffic,
and even one-way bus traffic is
difficult.

popular routes. To avoid these situations, residents reported walking further upstream, or restricting
their travel patterns to avoid crowding, or the uncertainty of missing the bus because of stop

95
skipping or full buses. It also led to activities of social solidarity, such as women coordinating and
walking together to the bus stop to minimize exposure to assault or illegal activities (IDB, 2020).
Related aspects of accessibility issues presented challenges perhaps not anticipated by
focusing on distance, ability to pay, and transit routing themselves. For example, places to charge
SUBE cards were few and far between, and often broken, requiring access to fixed train stations to
acquire and charge cards, regardless of income. For those choosing remises for efficiency or
emergency options, the door-to-door service enjoyed in formalized areas was not possible, as
companies refused to enter non-paved sections, just like buses. The process required setting a
location to meet outside the settlement and braving the streets to arrive on time, otherwise the remis
driver would leave (IDB, 2020).
The report exposes in stark detail how precarity implicates not just on access to services, but
the precarity of the transit service itself in these areas, including abrupt changes, let alone decreases,
in service, unsafe or unreliable transit, and the limited capacity for the transit system to adapt to
origin and destination needs. Though over half of the focus group participants benefited from
subsidized transit fares, up to 55 percent of the total cost, estimates for monthly expenditures per
person on transit ranged up to $1,000 pesos per month (usually about $20 pesos per ride based on
current pricing, per argentina.gob.ar). For this price, the lack of transversal, or inter-municipal routes

Visual 67: Traffic programming along Ruta 4 along the

stretch most accessible to the settlement. Here there are
obvious differences in road grade which complicate further
infrastructure projects. The use of planted medians is also
evident, thought without clear pedestrian crossing
infrastructure available for long distances. The opposite
traffic rights-of-way are relatively busy, with enough space
to accommodate two to three lanes of cars and trucks,
despite the lack of lane-dividing paint. U-turns and direct
turns onto feeder streets are possible in this format, though
precarious. Overall, buildings are rather close to the traffic,
but the full size of the avenue may reach the size necessary
for Metrobús infrastructure, if designed similarly to the
system available along Ruta 8.

96
represented a severely limiting aspect of the network. The Metrobús project along Ruta 8 was
conspicuously absent from most of the residents’ accounts (IDB, 2020), despite its inauguration in
Tres de Febrero before the beginning of the focus groups, and the reorganization of routes often
decreased the access points and route efficacy for residents, despite its functionality as a transit
transfer center between routes.
A series of recommendations for improved accessibility and service were drafted based on
the conversations in the focus groups. Paramount among these was more comprehensive colectivo
coverage, including connections with major employment centers at CEAMSE or in other regional
municipalities through transversal routes. Though this sample was perhaps skewed away from those
who traveled to the CABA for work, those trips were insignificant compared to those traveling
within San Martín or other Provincial destinations. Other important interventions noted were better
access to SUBE charging and acquisition facilities, as well as rolling stock infrastructure repairs and
driver training to make the process of using transit more comfortable and reduce the external costs
required to use it. These experiential issues were raised mainly by women, as men focused more on
payment and cost issues, emphasizing the importance of including women in designing transit
improvements that may encourage mode-shift. Improvements in security, such as more police
attention, and public lighting were major elements for improvement along these lines. Finally,
improved communication technology, and inter-communication between administrative bodies was
a key recommendation, not only to coordinate on linking infrastructure across physical and
jurisdictional boundaries, but to harvest the input and social capital of residents in embedded
infrastructure processes (IDB, 2020).
These sentiments find support in the work of Redondo (2013), where a similar analysis of
transit planning for peripheral urban settlements revealed the special dependence such communities
have on mass transit, primarily the colectivo and often train system, and the distance, time, and
tradeoffs associated with travel in and around settlements. In the final analysis, this peculiar lack of
accessibility amounts to breach of the “right to the city” (Redondo, 2013).

Discussion and Conclusion

Both OPISU and the Metrobús projects appear to have understood the complex challenges
laid before them, and spent each day working directly on improvements to many of the issues
discussed in the focus groups conversations. From controlling drug activity centers with soccer
installations, to cleaning and organizing key rights-of-way, to supporting networks of residents for

97
information sharing and collective projects, OPISU participated in ameliorating aspects of transit
accessibility not often acknowledged. Through transit corridor projects along Ruta 8, not only did
transit projects supplement adjacent businesses and create navigable public space, even at night, but
residents of nearby settlements may have them to thank for more direct routes to area hospitals in
emergency situations, or just finding a stable job within the CABA. Through its presence and the
people working in CC8 each day, many more people will have access to more sanitary conditions
and running water thanks to OPISU. Metrobús planners understood the value of both transversal
routes, and internal budget documents reveal this commitment along essential routes such as Ruta 4
in the vicinity of CC8 to the tune of hundreds of millions of pesos (M. López Menéndez, Personal
Documentation, January 23,2020). In the final analysis, however, the drive to extend radial routes to
link an increasingly polarized metropolitan region remained the priority for planners.
The extraordinary professionalism, camaraderie, and internal organization, especially in the
case of Metrobús, was on full display, and contributed to the monumental speed with which they
carried out their operations. The three divisions of the Ministry of Transport- Management,
Planning, and Works, exemplified the distinct, yet collaborative roles officials performed. Weekly
meetings were spaces of production and reflection, including examples of changes made during the
transition from planning to implementation based on new information, often received in the form of
engagement with residents and stakeholders (F. Giachetti, M. Goia, and M. J. Vazquez, Personal
Communications, August 20 2019 and August 21, 2019). Considering the limited personnel
available, for example the planning team composed of 12, often young, people (M. Goia, Personal
Communication, August 21, 2019), the strength of professional training and social capital formation
was impressive. Despite fragmentation, reports of robust accountability structures were based on
conversations revealing the 12-month provisional contracts supervised by the Works department,
and the frequency of reviews with control mechanisms to ensure the prompt delivery of contracted
work (F. Giachetti, Personal Communication, August 20, 2019). Analytical tools for rationalizable
data seemed limited only to the extend to data collection mechanisms, such as SUBE data analysis,
rather than the software needed to assimilate it into decision making (J.P. Salina, et. al., Personal
Communication, January 17, 2020). These highly integrated internal mechanisms contributed to the
remarkable proliferation of Metrobús projects throughout the region over a single decade. For cases
of changes in governance, planners showed the ability to adapt, as in the Metrobús Matanza project
(M. J. Vazquez, Personal Communication, August 21, 2019). For OPISU’s part the best evidence of
the good work of those on the ground in Costa Esperanza comes from the strong bonds and loving

98
resident relationships built over the course of their relatively short involvement, shown in the
expressions of joy, supportive words exchanged throughout site visits with Coco (Personal
Communication, January 24, 2020).
The challenge, then, is creating the stable platform necessary to leverage these successes
through a broader cooperative network. Though enduring relationships were key drivers of the
efficacy seen in the both the Metrobús project and the OPISU project, neither built a common
conception between projects just down the road, with their own valuable knowledges. Frustration
builds when those working on the ground, becoming friends with neighborhood leaders and
understanding social life there, have no outside institutional knowledge to impart to residents about,
for example, the progress on the Camino de Borde. Alternatively, Metrobús planners, with a wealth
of analytical tools and the means to truly transform corridors, must have the relational channels to
communicate changes with residents, and involve them in the process, especially in nearby areas
where accessibility is such a fragile concept. Existing institutional divisions or incapacities, such as
municipal fragmentation, can only be addressed through more robust fronts of support, built not

Visual 68: Opposite ends of a short cul-de-sac side street turning off of Calle 119. The left image overlooks
the lagoon for which Costa del Lago is named, adorned with markers of state presence. The sign reading
“Cuidemos el barrio entre todos” directs people not to throw waste in common spaces, here implying the
lagoon as a common space. It carries insignias of both the Provincia and the National Government and
occurs at an edge-point of auto-construction at risk of toppling into the lagoon. In the distance, the police
presence of a third level of government, the municipality of San Martín, sits on the opposite edge of the
lagoon, along the Camino del Borde. On the right, a symbol of the precarious administrative efforts of the
residents- a public subdividing of the space along the lines of conceptions held by at least a few of area
residents with some modicum of staying power.
only from the top, but the bottom, especially where municipalities will ultimately assume
responsibility for the maintenance of improvements. In short, urban development must embrace a

99
more inclusive sense of responsibility, where one project is recognized for its effect on another.
Personal relationships are the most effective methods, proven through internal institutional practice,
and the trust built by OPISU in CC8. This takes time and resources, however, and increasingly
siloed development professionals, in common with those they wish to serve, require solidarity and
community practice in order to reverse negative trends.
In this way, institutional design reflects the political and economic relationships operating
within historical context. These relationships implicate on transit provision and settlement
upgrading. Institutions undoubtedly act on their areas of specialization through cause and effect, but
a more in-depth communicative approach, in concert with structural forces link both ends of the
phenomenon of urban intervention projects. In this light, the institutional web and various
authorities at work in transit provision and settlement upgrading are manifestations of the political
economic system, mirroring responses to overarching forces on both the institutional and
community level. Both the result and the response are conditioned under the same norms, and thus
linked in a phenomenological cycle where the responses create the conditions and the conditions
create the response. Exploration of internal institutional dynamics, including the social worlds of
planners, are therefore valuable in the same way building relationships in under-served areas is
valuable, in order to reconcile misunderstood elements of a broader environment which and creates
precarity, including through complex webs of interlocking government agencies siloed in
individualized problem sets.
Reminiscent of the Peck’s (2011) “policy mobilities,” urban practitioners must broaden and
deepen their relationships, between colleagues, and within communities affected by their policy
priorities, not sacrificing rationalities towards individualized efficiency, but sharing in more inclusive
communities of policy discussion, understanding their own place within power structures, and
endeavoring to incorporate varied knowledge types. The elaboration of Communities of Practice,
through research and coordination between consolidated institutions, must be recognized as a vital
step toward the outcomes infrastructure projects desire. This shift is perfectly in line with the logic
of integrating settlements on a practical basis, recognizing the totality of the urban environment, and
the necessity to account for every inhabitant.

Urban Form and Function

Designing adequate tools for the next generation of transportation and settlement
infrastructure therefore requires the integration not only of the disparate institutional bodies which

100
regulate urban space, but of the concepts and methods of analysis they employ. Reinvigoration of
the integrative power of democratic institutions, such as through regional transit agencies, hold the
promise of bridging between the policy stability and constituent responsiveness necessary for
equitable urban development. These overarching structures must embody the ownership and
collaboration necessary at multiple levels of government and discourse, with representatives from
both macro and micro constituencies. This common ownership must furthermore involve stable,
multi-tiered investment, a recognition of the web of responsibilities inherent in infrastructure
planning- without adequate funding and fiduciary control, regional agencies lack the muscle to bring
their integrative function to fruition, and reinforce narratives of institutional precarity.
These structures must also practice radical inclusion to recognize the rights and full
participation of those historically maligned. Reflective institutions are effective institutions in this
sense, devoting time and resources to building inter-agency relationships in order to create the
Communities of Practice flexible enough to respond to claims of equity and common ownership. As
the CC8 and Metrobús projects show, no intervention is accomplished in a vacuum. Decision
makers not only have the responsibility to shape systems according to the greatest need, but to
anticipate and prioritize those needs long unmet. Only through the integration of data and mapping
tools with the qualitative, moral languages of on-the-ground organizing, can these marginal needs be
met. The time for workshops such as those conducted by the IDB in CC8, published after the
impact of the Ruta 8 Metrobús project, must be factored into each project, recognizing not only the
temporal, but the spatial and social ripple effects of planning and infrastructure. Only through
devoting attention to such marginal innovation opportunities, can transformative policy blossom.
Planners and practitioners, by embracing the complexity of their task, can thereby reclaim
the language of the “right to the city.” After decades of state retreat, it is perhaps not the flawed
national citizenships which will prevail, but citizenships fitted to the regional scale, as the intimately
connected spatial and relational conglomerations they represent. Currently, this new citizenship is
plagued by the particular barriers imposed by precarity, not only as harbors of the externalities and
ravages of a global system, but as a limit on the imaginations of urban creation. Those living in
precarious areas, and participating in the precarious structures of regional economy and political life,
expose the arbitrary boundaries of the systems that create them. Unequal provision of legal and
material rights for urban citizens, must shift radically toward methods of provision by and for all,
including the knowledges necessary to build institutions capable of securing the rights we deserve.

101
 Elaborated through the livelihoods and concepts woven through this project, fruitful
participation in the urban system, let alone the world, is nearly impossible, without the right to
transit through equitable, sustainable mobility. Public transportation not only answers an ethical
challenge in human societies regarding which populations are deserving of full expression and which
are not, but it also represents an opportunity to create healthy, and sustainable city of the future.
Measuring the realities of mobility, therefore, in relation to those most vulnerable to marginalization
by the decision-making apparatus of our society reveals the true priorities under which we operate.
Until these priorities shift toward building a stable platform for all, such precarity in living, working,
and travel in urban space will persist.

102
Interviews

All Interviews conducted in Spanish and translated for relevance. Transcripts of recordings and field
notes available upon request.

Metrobus:

All Metrobús Interviews conducted in the City of Buenos Aires, Argentina

Federico Giachetti
August 20, 2019

María José Vazquez

August 21, 2019

Eugenia Fevre
August 21 2019; January 29, 2020

Melina Goia
August 21 2019

Clara Sanguinetti
August 21, 2019

Juan Pablo Salina, Fernando Porcelli, Patricio Spadaro, Carlos Frutos

January 17, 2020

Manuela López Menéndez

August 9, 2019; January 23, 2020

OPISU:

José “Coco” Arosena,

January 24 2020
Province of Buenos Aires, Argentina

Alan Gancberg
April 27, 2020
Remote: Phone Conversation

103
Bibliography

Aboy, Rosa (2003). “La Vivienda Social en Buenos Aires en La Segunda Posguerra (1946- 1955).”
Scripta Nova: Revista Electrónica de Geografía y Ciencias Sociales, Universidad de Barcelona. ISSN:
1138-9788. Depósito Legal: B. 21.741-98 Vol. VII, núm. 146(031), August 1, 2003.
http://www.ub.edu/geocrit/sn/sn-146(031).htm.
Agencia de Transporte Metropolitano (2018). Plan Director de Transporte.
http://www.atm.gob.ar/pdf/PlanDirectorPDT18DIC18.pdf.
Aloisi, Jim and Johnson, Jarred (2018). “The Transportation Equity Conundrum: Improving
Mobility without Displacement.” Meeting of the Minds, August 6, 2018.
Meetingoftheminds.org.
Appadurai, Arjun (2006). “The Right to Research.” In Globalisation, Societies and Education, 4:2, 167-
177, DOI: 10.1080/14767720600750696.
http://www.arjunappadurai.org/articles/Appadurai_The_Right_to_Research.pdf.
APTA (2007). “Public Transportation: Benefits for the 21st Century,” American Public Transportation
Association.
http://www.apta.com/resources/reportsandpublications/Documents/twenty_first_century.
pdf.
Arendt, Hannah (1968). The Origins of Totalitarianism. New York, NY: Harcourt, Inc, A Harvest Book.
Argentina National Ministry of Transport (2019). Transformación y Transparencia para Crecer en Todo el
País, 2015-2019. Ministerio de Transporte de la Nación.
https://www.argentina.gob.ar/sites/default/files/librogestiontransporte_2019digital_1.pdf.
Auyero, Javier and Sobering, Katherine (2019). The Ambivalent State: Police-Criminal Collusion at the
Urban Margins. New York, NY: Oxford Unviersity Press, 2019. Personal Electronic Copy
distributed April 5, 2020.
Auyero, Javier, and Hobert, Rodrigo (2003). “¿Y Esto es Buenos Aires? Los Contrastos del Proceso
de Urbanización.” Nueva Historia Argentina. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Sudamericana, 2003,
pp. 213-244.
Bryman, Alan (2007). “Barriers to Integrating Quantitative and Qualitative Research.” Journal of
Mixed Methods Research 2007; 1; 8. DOI: 10.1177/2345678906290531.
http://mmr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/1/1/8.
Carolini, Gabriella Y. (2010). “The Tools of Whose Trade? How International Accounting
Guidelines are Failing Governments in the Global South.” Third World Quarterly, 31:3, 469-
483, DOI: 10.1080/01436597.2010.488480.
https://doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2010.488480.
Carolini, Gabriella Y. (2020). “Go South, Young Planner, Go South!” Journal of Planning Education and
Research 2020, Vol. 40(1) 10–15.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0739456X18754317.
Castells, Manuel (2008). “The New Public Sphere: Global Civil Society, Communication Networks,
and Global Governance.” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol.
616, Public Diplomacy in a Changing World (Mar., 2008), pp. 78-93. Sage Publications, Inc.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/25097995.
Castells, Manuel, and Calderón, Fernando (2015). “Latin America: Economic Faultlines.” Berkeley
Review of Latin American Studies, Fall 2015, pp. 14-21. UC Berkeley Center for Latin American
Studies. https://clas.berkeley.edu/research/latin-america-economic-faultlines.
Centner, Ryan (2012). “Microcitizenships: Fractious Forms of Urban Belonging after Argentine
Neoliberalism.” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Volume 36.2 March 2012

104
 336–62. DOI:10.1111/j.1468-2427.2011.01050.x.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1468-
2427.2011.01050.x?casa_token=d1qXFDpEaLIAAAAA:Dw5keh5M51tAkgDGuZkN2_FK
M-JEddu3WrfiUc48kvH-7PbpBXxK_bUaeSsfNn2u0vzGTrAhNCCvZA.
Chastain, Andra, B. (2017). “Beyond Resistance: New Works on Urban Popular Politics in
Latin America’s Informal Cities.” Journal of Urban History 2017, Vol. 43(6) 960–967. DOI:
10.1177/0096144217715617.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0096144217715617.
City of Buenos Aires (2013). Plan for Sustainable Mobility. English Version. Published online at
issuu.com. https://issuu.com/siemens_the_crystal/docs/buenos_aires.

City of Buenos Aires (2019). “8 Corredores Nuevos de Metrobús.” Buenosaires.gob.ar.

https://www.buenosaires.gob.ar/compromisos/8-corredores-nuevos-de-metrobus.
City of Buenos Aires (No date, after 2015). “Beneficios Red Metrobus CABA.” Buenos Aires Ciudad.
https://www.buenosaires.gob.ar/movilidad/metrobus/servicios-del-metrobus.
City Population (2020). “Argentina.” CityPopulation.de.
https://www.citypopulation.de/Argentina.html.
Clichevsky, Nora (2012). “Accessing Urban Land and Land Policies in the Metropolitan Area of
Buenos Aires: Notes for Reflection.” Revista Iberoamericana de Urbanismo nº8. Spanish: “Acceso
a la tierra urbana y políticas de suelo en el Buenos Aires metropolitan.”
https://upcommons.upc.edu/bitstream/handle/2099/13034/08_04_Clichevsky.pdf.
Denscombe, Martyn (July 2008). “Communities of Practice: A Research Paradigm for the Mixed
Methods Approach.” Journal of Mixed Methods Research, Volume 2, Number 3, July 2008 270-283,
10.1177/1558689808316807.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/249830959_Communities_of_Practice_A_Resea
rch_Paradigm_for_the_Mixed_Methods_Approach.
Dimarco, Sabina A. (2005). “Experiencias de Autoorganización en Cartoneros: Un Acercamiento a
la Configuración de Vínculos Laborales, Sociales y Políticos en Contextos de Exclusión
Social.” Informe final del concurso: Partidos, movimientos y alternativas políticas en América Latina y el
Caribe. Programa Regional de Becas CLACSO. 2005.
http://bibliotecavirtual.clacso.org.ar/ar/libros/becas/2005/partijov/dimarco.pdf.
Domínguez Roca, Luis J. (2005). “Planes Urbanos y Transporte en la Ciudad de Buenos Aires.”
Scripta Nova: Revista Electrónica De Geografía Y Ciencias Sociales, Universidad de Barcelona. ISSN:
1138-9788. Depósito Legal: B. 21.741-98 Vol. IX, núm. 194 (112), August 1, 2005.
https://revistes.ub.edu/index.php/ScriptaNova/article/view/1024.
Fainstein, Susan, and DeFilippis, James (2016). “Introduction: The Structure and Debates of
Planning Theory” in Readings in Planning Theory, 4th Edition.
Feilzer, Martina Yvonne (2010). “Doing Mixed Methods Research Pragmatically: Implications for
the Rediscovery of Pragmatism as a Research Paradigm.” Journal of Mixed Methods Research
4(1) 6–16. DOI: 10.1177/1558689809349691. Accessed via sagepub.com.
Ferbrache, Fiona (2019). “The Value of Bus Rapid Transit in Urban Spaces.” Chapter 1 in Developing
Bus Rapid Transit. Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar Publishing, Inc.
Fernandes, Edésio (2011). Regularization of Informal Settlements in Latin America. Lincoln Institute of
Land Policy: Cambridge, MA. ISBN 978-1-55844-202-3.
Fischer, Brodwyn, McCann, Bryan, and Auyero, Javier eds. (2014). Cities from Scratch: Poverty and
Informality in Urban Latin America. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

105
Flores, Onesimo, and Díaz, Rodgrigo (April 2019). “Transportation Governance in Latin America:
BRT as a Tool for Structural Change or as a Tweak over Existing Conditions?” Volvo
Research and Educational Foundations: VREF Research Synthesis Project, Governance of
Metropolitan Transport Background Paper.
http://www.vref.se/download/18.45182a5f16a84e95fac6750f/1560236439246/Transportati
on%20Governance%20in%20Latin%20America-
%20%20BRT%20as%20a%20tool%20for%20structural%20change%20%20or%20as%20a
%20tweak%20over%20existing%20conditions.pdf.
Flyvberg, Bent (2001). Making Social Science Matter: Why Social Inquiry Fails and How it can Succeed Again.
Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Local fotocopy from Stellar.
García, Nahual, García, Ramiro, and Pérez Giménez, Sheila (2003). El Tren Blanco. Film. Argentina:
Cine Efectivo. Accessed via YouTube.
Glassman, Michael and Patton, Rikki (2014). “Capability Through Participatory Democracy: Sen,
Freire, and Dewey.” Educational Philosophy and Theory, 46:12, 1353-1365, DOI:
10.1080/00131857.2013.828582.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00131857.2013.828582.
Gorelik, Adrián (2004). “Buenos Aires en la Encrucijada.” Miradas sobre Buenos Aires. Buenos Aires,
Argentina: Siglo XXI, 2004, pp. 175-255.
Government of the Province of Buenos Aires (March 5, 2018). Decreto 168-2018, Referencia:
Estructura Organismo Provincial de Integracion Social y Urbana. Gob.gba.gov.ar.
http://www.gob.gba.gov.ar/intranet/digesto/PDF/168-18.pdf.
Greenwood, Davydd, and Levin, Morten (2007). Introduction to Action Research. London: Sage
Publications, Inc. Local fotocopy from Stellar.
Gutierrez, Andrea (2000). “La producción del transporte público en la metrópolis de Buenos Aires:
Cambios recientes y tendencias futuras.” EURE, (Santiago), v.26 n.77, Santiago mayo 2000.
http://dx.doi.org/10.4067/S0250-71612000007700005.
H. Tran, P. Conejero Ortiz, J. Pérez Martín, R. Arif, A. Wiedenbach, M. Goetz (2019). Economic
Development Framework for Social & Urban Integration of Informal Settlements in Buenos Aires. Paper
submitted in fulfillment of requirements for 11.S938 class, May 2019. Massachusetts
Institute of Technology.
Habermas, Jürgen (1996). “Between Facts and Norms. Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law
and Democracy.” Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press.
Harvey, David (2005). A Brief History of Neoliberalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.
Heras, Raúl Garcia (1994). “State Intervention in Urban Passenger Transportation: The Transport
Corporation of Buenos Aires, 1939-1962.” The Hispanic American Historical Review, Vol. 74,
No. 1 (Feb., 1994), pp. 83-110. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2517428.
Heras, Raúl Garcia (1994). Transportes, Negocios, y Politica: La Compañía Anglo Argentina de Tranvías
1876-1981. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Editorial Sudamericana, 1994.
Hopp, Malena Victoria (2016). “Potencialidades y Límites del Programa Argentina Trabaja en Dos
Barrios Populares del Conurbano Bonaerense.” Documentos y Aportes en Administración Pública y
Gestión Estatal, no.27 Santa Fe dic. 2016. Version On-line ISSN 1851-3727.
http://www.scielo.org.ar/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1851-37272016000200001.
IDB, (No Date, 2018-2019). Loan Proposal for Conditional Credit Line for Investment Projects
(CCLIP) for the Social and Urban Integration Program in the Province of Buenos Aires
(AR-O0012) First Individual Operation under the CCLIP, Social and Urban Integration
Program in Greater Buenos Aires (AR-L1288). Argentina. Inter-American Development Bank.

106
 For Public Simultaneous Disclosure.
http://idbdocs.iadb.org/wsdocs/getdocument.aspx?docnum=EZSHARE-886698046-75.
Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) for Financial, Private Sector, and Sustainable Development
(2017). Project Performance Assessment Report: Argentina, Buenos Aires Urban Transport Project (Ibrd-
4163, Ibrd-7442). International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, The World Bank.
Report No. 113664. https://ieg.worldbankgroup.org/sites/default/files/Data/reports/ppar-
argentina-04282017.pdf.
ITDP (2014). “A New Way Forward for Buenos Aires.” Sustainable Transport No. 25, Invierno, 2014.
Institute for Transportation and Development Policy. https://go.itdp.org/.
ITDP (2020). “BRT Rankings.” Institute for Transportation and Development Policy.
https://www.itdp.org/library/standards-and-guides/the-bus-rapid-transit-standard/best-
practices-2013/.
ITDP Press Release, No Author (2011, May 31). “First Bus Rapid Transit System in Argentina
Launches in Buenos Aires: Dedicated Bus Lanes Set to Increase Public Transportation Use
and Reduce Emissions.” Press Release: Institute for Transportation and Development Policy.
https://itdpdotorg.wpengine.com/wp-
content/uploads/2014/07/ITDP_BA_BRT_053111.pdf.
James, William (1906), Transcribed by Blunden, A. (1998) and corrected (2005). “Lecture II: What
Pragmatism Means.” From What is Pragmatism (1904), from a series of eight lectures
dedicated to the memory of John Stuart Mill, A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking, in
December 1904, from William James, Writings 1902-1920, The Library of America; Lecture
II. https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/us/james.htm.
Janches, Flavio, Henderson, Hayley, and MacColman, Leslie (2014). “Urban Risk and Climate
Change Adaptation in the Reconquista River Basin of Argentina.” Lincoln Institute of Land
Policy. Working Paper.
https://www.lincolninst.edu/sites/default/files/pubfiles/2486_1832_Janches%20WP14FJ1.
pdf.
Jefatura de Gabinete de Minstros (2019). “Mapa del Estado.” Ministerio de Transporte de la
Presidencia de la Nación de Argentina (Ministry of Transportation, Argentina). Version
updated as of August 7, 2019.
Kasraian, Dena, Maat, Kees, and van Wee, Bert (2019). “The impact of urban proximity, transport
accessibility and policy on urban growth: A longitudinal analysis over five decades.” EPB:
Urban Analytics and City Science 2019, Vol. 46(6) 1000–1017. DOI:
10.1177/2399808317740355.
Katz, Claudio (2015). “What is neo-developmentism? A critical view: Argentina and Brazil.” Serv.
Soc. Soc., São Paulo, n. 122, p. 224-249, abr./jun. 2015.
http://www.scielo.br/pdf/sssoc/n122/0101-6628-sssoc-122-0224.pdf.
La Nación de Argentina (2012, June 6). “Decreto 874/2012.” Nación de Argentina: Administración
Pública Nacional. https://www.argentina.gob.ar/normativa/nacional/decreto-874-2012-
198318/texto.
Liernur, Jorge Francisco, and Aliata, Fernando (2004). Diccionario de Arquitectura en la Argentina.
University of Texas.
Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, Edesio Fernandez et. al. (2011). Regularization of Informal Settlements
in Latin America. Policy Focus Report, LLI. ISBN 978-1-55844-202-3
Policy Focus Report/Code PF023.
https://www.lincolninst.edu/sites/default/files/pubfiles/regularization-informal-
settlements-latin-america-full_0.pdf.

107
Lynn Scholl Andrea Gutiérrez Leda Paula Pereyra Ricardo Apaolaza Álvaro Caviedes (drafted 2019,
for publication in 2020). “Movilidad y Accesibilidad en Asentamientos Informales: El Caso
de Tres Comunidades en la Provincia de Buenos Aires.” BID: Banco Inter-Americano de
Desarrollo. Inter-American Development Bank. Unpublished report authorized for use by
IDB. Private Copy.
Mackie, Kyle (2009). “Why developing countries need sustainable transport: Q&A with Dr. V. Setty
Pendakur, Part I.” The City Fix. November 19, 2009. http://thecityfix.com/blog/why-
developing-countries-need-sustainable-transport-interview-part-one-v-setty-pendakur-kyle-
mackie/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+thecityf
ix%2Fposts+%28TheCityFix%29.
Markets Insider (2020). “United Sates Dollar- Argentine Peso.” Markets.BusinessInsider.com.
https://markets.businessinsider.com/currencies/usd-ars.
McCallum, Stephanie (2019). “Railroad Revolution: Infrastructural Decay and Modernization in
Argentina.” Tapuya: Latin American Science, Technology and Society 2019, VOL. 2, NO. 1, 540–
559. https://doi.org/10.1080/25729861.2019.1688908.
Mitchell, Ann (2015). “Civil Society Organizations in the Informal Settlements of Buenos Aires:
Service Providers and Forces for Change.” International Society for Third-Sector Research and Johns
Hopkins University: Voluntas, 2015. DOI 10.1007/s11266-015-9561-7.
Mitchell, John, Wood, Sarah, and Young, Susan (2001). Communities of Practice. Australian National
Training Authority. https://www.voced.edu.au/content/ngv:6628.
Morgan, David L. (2007). “Paradigms Lost and Pragmatism Regained: Methodological Implications
of Combining Qualitative and Quantitative Methods.” Journal of Mixed Methods, Research
Volume 1, Number 1, January 2007 48-76. 10.1177/2345678906292462.
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.1008.7154&rep=rep1&type=pd
f.
Municpalidad de Tres de Febrero (2015-2020). “Metrobus en Ruta 8.” Tresdefebrero.gov.ar.
https://www.tresdefebrero.gov.ar/desarrollo-urbano/obras-de-infraestructura/renovacion-
la-ruta-8/.
No Author (2011). “Dónde está Diego Duarte (Where is Diego Duarte).” Lavaca.org. Article
published online, July 26, 2011. https://www.lavaca.org/notas/donde-esta-diego-duarte/.
No Author (2012). “Latin American Green City Index: Assessing the Environmental Performance
of Latin America’s Major Cities.” Economist Intelligence Unit, financed by Siemens, 2012.
http://www.slideshare.net/Management-Thinking/latin-american-green-city-index-
assessing-the-environmental-performance-of-latin-americas-major-cities.
No Author (2014). “Buenos Aires: Plan for Sustainable Mobility.” City Climate Leadership Awards,
2013-14. http://cityclimateleadershipawards.com/buenos-aires-plan-for-sustainable-
mobility/.
No Author (No date given, 2020). “Buenos Aires.” Institute for Transportation and Development Policy.
https://www.itdp.org/city-transformations/buenos-aires/.
No Author (No Date). “Historia del Colectivo.” LosColectivos.com.
http://www.loscolectivos.com.ar/historia.html.
No Author, Clarín (September 3, 2019). “Abrió el Último Tramo del Metrobús de La Grieta en La
Ruta 8.” Clarin.com. https://www.clarin.com/ciudades/abrio-ultimo-tramo-metrobus-grieta-
ruta-8-segundo-conecta-ciudad-gba_0_YFEZVuRvy.html
No Author, El Constructor (January 3, 2019). “$301 M para Segunda Etapa del Metrobus en Ruta
8.” El Constructor. https://www.elconstructor.com/vialidad/301-m-para-segunda-etapa-del-
metrobus-en-ruta-8_6187.html.

108
No Author, Revista Colectibondi (July 16, 2019). Cómo es el Nuevo Metrobús San Martín en la
Ruta 8. Revista Colectibondi. https://www.revistacolectibondi.com.ar/2019/07/16/como-es-
el-nuevo-metrobus-san-martin-en-la-ruta-8/.
Olmedo, Clara, and Murray, Martin J. (2002). “The Formalization of Informal/Precarious Labor in
Contemporary Argentina.” International Sociology, September 2002, Vol 17(3): 421–443, SAGE
(London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi) [0268-5809(200209)17:3;421–443;026903].
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0268580902017003004.
OPISU (November 9, 2018). “Metodología Planes Urbanos.” Organismo Provincial de Integración Social y
Urbana. Gobierno de la Provincia de Buenos Aires. Local Copy from OPISU staff.
OPISU (November, 2018). “Integración Social y Urbana de Costa Esperanza, Costa del Lago, y 8 de
Mayo.” Organismo Provincial de Integración Social y Urbana. Provincia de Buenos Aires. Local
copy from OPISU staff, presentation delivered to MIT 11.S938 class.
Oszlak, Oscar (1983). “Los Sectores Populares y el Derecho al Espacio Urbano.” Article published
in Punto de Vista, 1983: Buenos Aires, Argentina. Also published in SCA (Revista de la Sociedad
Central de Arquitectos), No.125 aniversario, 1983: Buenos Aires, Argentina.
http://www.oscaroszlak.org.ar/images/articulos-
prensa/Los%20sectores%20populares%20y%20el%20derecho%20al%20esp%20urb.pdf.
Peck, Jamie (2011). “Geographies of Policy: From Transfer-Diffusion to Mobility-Mutation.”
Progress in Human Geography, pp. 1–25.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/258174981_Geographies_of_policy.
Pendakur, Setty (1997). Urban Poor and Urban Transport: Their Mobility and Access to Transport Services.
Paper prepared for United Nations Center for Human Settlements (HABITAT). Nairobi,
Kenya: International Forum on Urban Poverty Florence, Italy. 09-13 November, 1997.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/311950238_Urban_Poor_and_Urban_Transport
_Their_Mobility_and_Access_to_Services.
Pírez, Pedro (2002). “Buenos Aires: Fragmentation and Privatization of the Metropolitan City.”
Environment & Urbanization, Vol 14, No 1, April 2002.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/095624780201400112.
Polanyi, Karl (1944). The Great Transformation. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 2001 Edition.
Rasore, Clara (2014). “The World’s Widest Avenue Gets a Transit Makeover.” Sustainable Transport,
No. 25, pg. 11-12. ITDP.org.
Redondo, Solange Paula (2013). “Movilidad y Transporte en el Área Metropolitana de Buenos Aires:
La Brecha de la Accesibilidad y la Generación de una Ciudad Inclusiva.” X Jornadas de
Sociología. Facultad de Ciencias Sociales, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires.
http://www.aacademica.org/000-038/200.
Rogat, Jorge, Hinostroza, Miriam, y Ernest, Kamala (2009). “Promoting Sustainable Transport in
Latin America through Mass Transit Technologies.” Colloque international Environnement et
transports dans des contextes différents, Ghardaïa, Algérie, 16-18 Feb.. 2009. Actes, ENP ed., Alger, p.
83-92.
Rorty, Richard (1982). Consequences of Pragmatism (Essays: 1972-1980). Minneapolis, MN: University of
Minnesota Press. https://www.scribd.com/doc/187334534/Richard-Rorty-Consequences-
of-Pragmatism-Essays-1972-1980-1982.
Salvucci, Fred (2014). “Reflection on the Usefulness of Accessibility as a Lens through which to
Consider the Evaluation of Transportation and Land Use Policies and Projects.” Chapter in
Urban Access for the 21st Century, ed. Sclar, Lönnroth, and Wolmar. London and New York:
Routledge.

109
Sassen, Saskia (2003). “The State and Globalization.” Interventions, 5:2, 241-248.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1369801031000112978.
Scholl, Lynn, Gutiérrez, Andrea, Pereyra, Leda Paula, Apaolaza, Ricardo, Caviedes, Álvaro
(Unpublished, For publication in 2020). Movilidad y accesibilidad en asentamientos informales. Inter-
American Development Bank. Shared with permission from Carolina Benitez, IDB.
Schön, Donald A. (1983). The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action. New York, NY:
Basic Books, Inc., Routledge, 2016, Ashgate, 1991. Stellar Photocopy.
Secretaría de Transporte (2010). ENMODO: Encuesta de Movilidad Domiciliaria. La Nación de
Argentina. https://www.argentina.gob.ar/transporte/dgppse/publicaciones/encuestas.
Small, Mario Luis (2011). “How to Conduct a Mixed Methods Study: Recent Trends in a Rapidly
Growing Literature.” Annu. Rev. Sociol. 2011. 37:57–86. First published online as a Review in
Advance on April 15, 2011. DOI: 10.1146/annurev.soc.012809.102657.
https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/pdf/10.1146/annurev.soc.012809.102657.
Streeten, Paul et. al. (1981). First Things First: Meeting Basic Needs in Developing Countries. World Bank,
the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development. Oxford University Press.
TransitMatters (2011, May 31). “Metrobús, Argentina’s First BRT System, Launches in Buenos
Aires. TransitMatters Blog Post: Institute for Transportation and Development Policy.
https://www.itdp.org/2011/05/31/metrobus-argentinas-first-brt-system-launches-in-
buenos-aires/.
UN Comisión Económica para America Latina (1965). “El Transporte en America Latina: Volumen
III.” United Nations, Economic Commission for Latin America, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic,
May 1965. https://repositorio.cepal.org/handle/11362/29090.
UN-Habitat (2003b). “Policy Statement on Partnerships with NGOs & Civil Society Organizations.”
UN-HABITAT. http://www.unhabitat.org/content.asp?typeid= 19&catid=364&cid=372.
UN-Habitat (2013). “Time to Think Urban." United Nations. http://www.
unhabitat.org/pmss/listItemDetails.aspx?publicationID=3456.
United Nations (1948). Universal Declaration of Human Rights. UN General Assembly Resolution 217
A. Paris: December 10, 1948. https://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/.
United Nations (2017). “Report of the High Level Independent Panel to Assess and Enhance
Effectiveness of UN-Habitat.” United Nations General Assembly. Advance Unedited Version 01
August 2017 A/71/1006. https://www.un.org/pga/71/wp-
content/uploads/sites/40/2015/08/UN_Habitat-Assessment-Report.pdf.
UNTREF (2015). “Hacia una Política de Transporte de Calidad en el AMBA: Diagnóstico y
Recomendaciones.” https://www.buenosaires.gob.ar/sites/gcaba/files/untref_-
_transporte_amba_-_informe_final_-.pdf.
Valente, Marcela (2014). “How Buenos Aires Unclogged Its Most Iconic Street: A bus-rapid transit
success story.” Citylab, 4 Marzo, 2014.
https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2014/03/how-buenos-aires-unclogged-its-most-
iconic-street/8549/.
Velazquez, Maximiliano Augusto (2013). “¿Es la Agencia Metropolitana de Transporte un
Ordenamiento Jurídico Administrativo que Garantice el Derecho a la Movilidad Urbana en
la Región Metropolitana de Buenos Aires?” X Jornadas de Sociología. Facultad de Ciencias
Sociales, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires. http://www.aacademica.org/000-
038/195.
Velázquez, Maximiliano Augusto (2013). “El Derecho a la Movilidad Urbana en un Contexto de
Pluriagencialidad Metropolitana.” Centro de Estudios Legales y Sociales (CELS): Debate II en

110
 Derechos Humanos en Argentina, Informe 2013. https://www.cels.org.ar/web/capitulos/el-
derecho-a-la-movilidad-urbana-en-un-contexto-de-pluriagencialidad-metropolitana/.
Veltmeyer, Henry (2008). “Civil Society and Local Development.” INTERAÇÕES, Campo Grande, v.
9, n. 2, p. 229-243, jul./dez. 2008.
Vieira, Else R. P., and Thompson, Amaranta (2012). “Neoliberalism and its Effects on Labour: El
Tren Blanco and the Argentinian cartoneros.” IPOTESI, JUIZ DE FORA, v.16, n.1, p. 65-78,
jan./jun. 2012. http://www.ufjf.br/revistaipotesi/files/2011/05/07-Neoliberalism-and-its-
effects-Ipotesi_16.1.pdf.
Vio, Marcela (No Date, 2019). “Territorio y Economía Popular en el Conurbano Bonaerense:
Aportes para el Reconocimiento de Procesos Metropolitanos Gestados en la
Posconvertibilidad.” Agenda de Reflexión en Arquitectura, Diseño, y Urbanismo.
https://area.fadu.uba.ar/area-24/vio24/#nota8.
Watson, Vanessa (2003). “Conflicting rationalities: implications for planning theory and ethics.”
Planning Theory & Practice, 4:4, 395-407, DOI: 10.1080/1464935032000146318.
https://doi.org/10.1080/1464935032000146318.
Zegras, Chris, and Menckhoff, Gerhard (1999). “Experiences and Issues in Urban Transport
Infrastructure Concessions.” Paper prepared for the International Road Federation (IRF)
Symposium on Innovative Financing in Transportation Projects September 29 – October 1, 1999
Hanoi, Vietnam. Reference No. TWU-38.
http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/608461468005464634/Experiences-and-
issues-in-urban-transport-infrastructure-concessions.
Zhao, Jinhua, Katsopoulos, Harris, and Zhao, Zhan (2020). “Discovering Latent Activity Patterns
from Transit Smart Card Data: A Spatiotemporal Topic Model.” Transportation Research Part C
Emerging Technologies, March 2020.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/340279324_Discovering_Latent_Activity_Patter
ns_from_Transit_Smart_Card_Data_A_Spatiotemporal_Topic_Model.

111