Past, present and future of mobility in the Tua valley: (19th to 21st centuries)

Abstract

For over 200 years, the Tua valley’s mobility system went through several evolutions, from the primitive oxcarts and riverboats to the coming of the railway and the automobile. Each of these developments had a number of different characteristics and served diverse goals or needs, according with the circumstances of the time. In this paper we will analyse this evolution, by describing the means and ways of mobility and how they developed throughout the years. Whenever possible we will also recreate the transport trends that justified the appearance of new forms of mobility and the decay and hypothetical rebirth of others. With this study we hope to contribute for the debate about mobility in peripheral areas in the long run. In particular we hope to demonstrate how certain instruments of mobility ceased to be a regular commuter service to become a touristic enterprise linked with industrial or landscape heritage. In order to achieve these goals we will rely upon quantitative and qualitative data and upon a broad choice of recent studies about these issues.