The end of the line: envisioning degrowth and ecosocial justice in the resistance to the trolleybus dismantlement in Moscow

Abstract

The city of Moscow has been going through a transformation of its surface transport network during the past decade as part of a broader policy of urban beautification. Despite a renewed interest in public transport, this policy has led to the dismantling of the trolleybus system. This was met with resistance from various groups. Bringing together scholarly discussions on urban growth coalitions and on degrowth, we repoliticise urban mobility policies and put the entangled issues of ecological sustainability and social justice at the centre of the analysis. To do this, we outline a degrowth vision of urban mobility and introduce the concept of ecosocial justice, through which the case is analysed. Our results show that the trolleybus dismantlement increases biophysical throughput, compromises Moscow’s ecology of culture, and is rooted in injustices, not least because Moscow authorities have ignored the many objections and alternative proposals put forward by residents. However, opposition groups paid limited attention to procedural injustices and to the configuration of Moscow’s political economy. This was a limitation of the campaign, but suggests possibilities for repoliticising urban mobility policies at other sites of resistance.