Broad support vs. deep opposition: The politics of bus rapid transit in low- and middle-income countries

It is no secret that decision-making around mass transit infrastructure can be highly political. Transport policy research, however, has tended to view political dynamics mainly as barriers. There is a need to better understand how and under what conditions political interests and institutions can enable mass transit projects, especially in cities which are not yet locked into car-centric transport systems. This paper addresses this gap with new inductive evidence from 32 expert interviews on the politics of bus rapid transit (BRT) in low- and middle-income countries. It develops two novel analytical frameworks, one on the politics of system adoption and another on the politics of system durability. The first framework highlights how BRT proposals often pitch broad but shallow political support against narrow yet deep political opposition. This renders them inherently contentious. Proposals move forward when their implementation generates political benefits for powerful decisionmakers. The second framework challenges the conventional view that BRT systems prove durable when their operations perform well. Instead, it posits that systems endure when their operations mitigate or adapt to adverse political feedback. The paper offers a novel holistic perspective on how to understand the politics of BRT, and presents a critical intervention in the BRT literature which has tended to focus on isolated political dynamics, such as the need for a local champion or resistance from paratransit operators.