A new urbanity in a suburban region: the perceived (im)possibilities of light rail among residents and stakeholders in Canada’s Waterloo Region

Recent scholarship on light rail transit (LRT) connects this infrastructure to broader processes of urban transformation, bringing to the forefront its significance beyond transportation functionality. However, much of the transportation literature does not adequately explore light rail’s diverse meanings. In this article, we draw on 65 semi-structured interviews with residents living along the new LRT line in Waterloo Region, Canada, as well as 20 key stakeholders, to identify the infrastructure’s perceived roles with respect to city building, urban identity, and neighbourhood change. We investigate how residents ascribe meaning to the LRT, and the extent to which these meanings align with stakeholders’ growth management objectives. In contrast to this focused planning rationale, the LRT evokes for residents a broader range of (im)possibilities that reflect their class positions and understandings of (sub)urban life in the region. Residents’ perspectives underline light rail’s implication in producing middle-class urbanity beyond its role in supporting an intensified, revitalized urban form. Here, light rail also reinforces existing urban middle-class identities and aspirations, which conflict with both dominant suburban identities and the experiences and fears of lower-income residents living along the route. These findings interrogate who is included in the type of city an LRT helps construct.