Reaching back into the past to construct a future that seemed impossible, even preposterous, in 2010, Peter began the El Paso Transnational Trolley Project, in which he re-imagined an existence for the historical streetcar that once connected downtown El Paso to downtown Juárez.

It was a social practice art project which combined reality and fiction, civic memory and aspirational dreams. For the next three years, in sketchbooks and digital darkrooms and on walls and spaces on the Border, the El Paso Transnational Trolley Project conjured a vision of a world where El Paso and Juárez were connected more than separated, where everyday stories were reanimated with communal meaning, and where citizens of a shared geography went about their business in peace. It was a long-time truth but a new border story, from the perspective of a border citizen, a fronterizo. 

This project went farther than anyone could imagine, bringing a real world streetcar back to El Paso in 2018 and bringing Peter into public office, running for City Council and being elected in El Paso in 2015. With joy, passion and humor, this book documents the impact art can have in the real world and proposes novel solutions to entrenched problems.

Gathering contributions by some of the most important experts on art and civic engagement, The Trolley Project features a full-color artist’s dossier illustrating the project from its inception to the present day, in addition to critical essays from Andrea Cote Botero, Alfredo Corchado, Lyle Rexer, Doris Sommer and José Falconi, and a forward by Beto O’Rourke.