‘The travail of travelling’: urban transport in South Africa, 1930–1996

This article reviews the evolution of urban passenger transport policy within the context of changing economic and political climates in South Africa over the past seven decades. During key periods in South Africa's development, namely the 1940s and 1950s, and in the 1980s, the delivery of essential services such as transport became an area of popular protests and political mobilization. The transition from politics of protest to the politics of negotiation ushered in a new era of inclusive and more transparent transport policy formulation in the 1990s. However, the national transport policy process has become another site of struggle, negotiation and contestation.