Creating inequality in accessibility: The relationships between public transport and social housing policy in deprived areas of Santiago de Chile

This paper identifies the very limited connectivity provided by the current public transport system to the most deprived groups of Santiago de Chile, and explores the territorial aspects of transport and social housing policies that have contributed to the creation of unequal public transport schemes. To achieve those aims, we present a review of public policies in Chile and the results of an original quantitative analysis that measures the travel times required to access the opportunities and activities located in the city. The results show that housing policies put people at a disadvantage by increasing the distance between them and the opportunities of the city. Three decades after the implementation of housing policies, transport still fails to mitigate these distances and instead of alleviating the patterns of segregation, it may have reinforced them. The travel times required increase towards the periphery (even though densities do not decrease) and are higher than the averages of the city in social housing estates.