Analyzing transport politics through “critical moments”: Conflict and power in the paradigmatic case of Seventh Avenue in Bogotá, Colombia
本文提出“关键时刻”方法论，研究交通决策中的政治过程，通过哥伦比亚波哥大第七大道的案例，揭示公民政治行动被排除如何意外损害交通正义，并强调冲突管理在规划中的重要性。
This article proposes the methodology of Critical Moments (CMs) to study transport decision-making politics, contributing to debates on transport as a social construct. Critical Moments are defined as moments when change occurs in contentious processes through relational interactions, causing uncertainty, disrupting power relations, and shaping action repertoires. The methodology enables analysis of how formal and informal political actions by citizens and administrations shape transport outcomes, revealing how projects are developed both within and outside conventional planning processes. An ethnographic study of Seventh Avenue in Bogotá, Colombia, illustrates how the interplay between case actors during CMs led to a progressive agenda and participatory process but ultimately excluded citizens’ political action, jeopardizing transport justice. The analysis provides three key insights into transport politics and justice. First, it reveals the unintended consequences of excluding citizens’ political actions, suggesting that excluding “some” to improve transport justice for “others” may have the opposite effect, jeopardizing transport justice for all. Second, it demonstrates that in contested planning processes, both critical and non-critical moments are equally important for addressing conflict adequately. Third, it provides insights into procedural justice and participation, indicating that it involves managing both relational and substantive conflicts throughout the decision-making process and includes “contestation” in the understanding of participation. Critical Moment analysis enables a better understanding of the relational complexity and shifting power dynamics in transport planning by comparing contested meanings in stakeholder perspectives. It provides an empirical analysis of the temporality of conflict and power mismatches in urban transformation.