Vehicles for justice: buses and advancement

Abstract

AbstractThis article draws on the findings from The Bus Project (2018–2021) in Bristol, which found that children living in some of the most deprived streets in England cannot afford to visit the centre of their city. The article explains that the problem of children ‘not being on the buses’ is the consequence of a series of policy choices in bus governance. Empirically, the article demonstrates that the causes of bus immobility – cost, fear of the unknown, unfamiliarity, and unreliability – have clear detrimental effects on children's ability to access leisure and civic opportunities, independent travel, and education of choice. Theoretically, it argues that discrimination and equality law – the dominant legal paradigms for addressing inequality – have limitations in this setting when they do not explicitly provide for socio‐economic inequality. This article suggests that we could develop a concept of ‘advancement’, drawing on aspects of Section 1 of the Equality Act 2010 (still unimplemented in England, though in force in Scotland and Wales), moving beyond protected characteristics. As a policy, advancement could be implemented using administrative means, including existing data sets on free school meals or indices of deprivation. A concept of advancement could become a mechanism to enable us to address socio‐economic inequality as a ‘vehicle for justice’, just as buses are vehicles capable of facilitating spatial justice in practical terms.