Improving women's accessibility to public transport through participatory street experiments: The case of Maltepe, Istanbul

Abstract

Building on the literature concerning gender-responsive mobility, this paper aims to explore how street experiments can be used to promote gendered mobilities and create streetscapes in order to prioritise the needs of women in the improvement of access to public transport that grants them access to the many facets of urban life. It argues that by creating more inclusive and accessible streets through participatory planning and design processes, women will have greater opportunities to participate in and benefit from public transport. To that end, a street experiment project, TOPUK, was used as a case study focusing on improving women's access to public transport in Maltepe, Istanbul. The methodology consists of the critical assessment of various participation methods and a detailed narrative of the project process. Accessibility, mobility, and safety were found to be the most important women-centric public transportation issues addressed through participatory pop-up design solutions at the street level, most of which were implemented despite bureaucratic obstacles. The paper concludes with a discussion of the lessons learned from the TOPUK project and how these lessons can be applied to future street experiments to create more gender-responsive and inclusive living environments.