Transit Life: How Commuting Is Transforming Our Cities (Book Review)

Abstract

Resonating with the idea of ‘transit’, David Bissell’s book Transit Life directs us towards thinking of the idea of commuting as something that is always in the middle, moving while churning out innumerable everyday narratives. This book braids together a collection of personal experiences, memories of commuting with everyday interactions through his fieldwork in and around Sydney. Bissell sketches a detailed account of what indeed is life while we are in passage. His account is embodied, affective, yet critical and reflective of a variety of everyday social, political and geographical interactions within and around transportation. The book approaches transit life through the lens of everyday commuters, bloggers of city transportation, policy makers, transit advocates, among others, to craft a complex yet insightful network of stories and experiences.