Despite being one of the largest metropolitan areas in the United States, Phoenix, Arizona, is one of the few with no Amtrak train transit. While you cannot get in or out of the city by train, it does have a humble light rail system, built in the face of public sector austerity in 2008. In this article, sociologist, writer and photographer Brian F. O’Neill describes his process of unpacking the everyday experience of riding the rails through image-making, video, sound and writing, bringing together insights and methods across current arts research and scholarship on walking/mobile methods. By reworking the notion of a transect (repurposed from the biological sciences) as a means to engage in critical urban research, this piece poses the question: how we can be attentive in a city whose very infrastructure seems to provoke a mindset of isolated and individualised distraction?
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