I think the idea here is that these are temporary stops or intermediate resting places in the constant flow of mobility, rather than final destinations.

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Note added at 15 mins (2008-11-28 19:23:33 GMT)
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I've just thought of another possibility: 'intermediate resting places'

I would just call them stopovers .It echoes something like a "pied à terre", something that's yours for a transient time

I think you need "last stop" to render "terminus"

Just another phrasing along the same line.

I think a terminus has to be the end of some sort of line, but it doesn't have to be the irreversible end of every line - like a terminal illness - and the sense does seem clear here from the context: rather than a situation where our basic state is to belong to a place and movement is abnormal, our basic state is to be mobile and "places are just rest stops" in that general state (or rather, following the text, this balance between movement and rest is a state of "intermediate mobility").

So if that total mobile state is an unbroken line, and immobile state a point, this state is like a line with breaks in it or a set of shorter lines, so the rest stop is still the end of a line like a terminus. That's how I rationalise the apparent contradicton anyway!


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Note added at 5 hrs (2008-11-29 00:40:43 GMT)
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Nb.1: If you think of the home as the model of the "place" that for some is the basic situation and could here be conceived as a "rest stop", then the terminus idea is even more plausible, because the line is like a series of loops leaving and returning to the house rather than a road broken up by different rest stops (though it's still the latter in an abstract way) - just like a bus can leave and return to a terminus....

Nb.2 "terminus repos de cette mobilité" is a quote: do you know the source? If it's a well-known author it might already be translated.

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Note added at 1 day13 hrs (2008-11-30 08:28:20 GMT)
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Thanks Carol, well, it could be that the author is just using quotation marks to highlight a neologism, but your first example suggests a longish quote which would suggest a citation... FR authors are appalling at footnoting :(

Nb.3 I've been alerted to the fact that "rest stop" could suggest "toilet break", which is obviously not the right idea at all...