By Emily Duchenne - Geography Student @ Brasenose College, Oxford
Megaprojects are complex developments that through their significant cost, timescale and number of stakeholders involved are (or rather, hope to be) hugely transformational in their operations. Transport megaprojects aim to reshape how individuals are able to be mobile, such as through new bridges, light-rails or airports, impacting the everyday for millions of people. They are intended to enhance the spaces they are constructed in and benefitting the lives of those able to use them, Furthermore, transport megaprojects are considered by many planners and politicians to be vital for increasing the global competitiveness of cities, regions and nations through imaginations of an ultramodern, efficient and equitable way of life. However, it is this focus that ends up leaving the citizens that the projects were meant to serve being marginalised within their own spaces.