A Fantastic Bus Stop

An Artificial Object of Everyday Life Politics in the Bangkok Mass Public Transportation System

Abstract

This article studies the emergence of a fantastic bus stop at the Phutthamonthon Sai 2 Road footpath in Bangkok. Although the bus stop was constructed by people's everyday life practices in using the mass public transportation system unauthorizedly, it can be used in addition to the officially organized legal bus stops normally. The author suggests that the existence of bus stop attests to the problem of an unalignment between the ordinary people’s urban life, the user’s familiarity, the official’s administrative structure, and the provider’s way of planning mass public transport infrastructure. In this process, the fantastic of the bus stop politically demonstrates that the user tactics were included to align themselves with the given system under the official strategy, finally making the problem invisible from its being.