No Equity in the Car-Centric City

Mobility is key to prospering in cities. If you were unable to get your groceries, take your kids to school, or access essential services because of a barrier to mobility, it would understandably put a strain on your life.

For many systemic reasons, women experience significant strains on their mobility, due to being statistically less likely to own a car, more likely to trip-chain, travel at off-peak times. Accessing multiple destinations at off-peak hours by walking, cycling, or bussing is incredibly challenging in most Canadian cities today because our transportation systems that have been geared towards the “average man’s” mobility needs and preferences.

Statistically, women, trans, gender-queer, ow-income, Black Indigenous People of Colour (BIPOC), disabled, and elderly people most heavily rely on sustainable modes of transportation. Instead of prioritizing the transportation modes used by society’s most marginalized, governments have disproportionately funded enforcement efforts. This has resulted in the over-policing of people who are using these modes in transportation systems that have not been designed to meet their most fundamental mobility needs.

Here are three examples of how Canadian transportation systems have failed to provide individuals with a real choice in mobility and have punished them for using the systems as designed.

Biking in Winnipeg

In Winnipeg, Manitoba, it is against the law to ride a bike on a sidewalk if the diameter of the rear-wheel is over 16 inches — so, any “adult” bike. Those who do take to the sidewalk to feel a sense of security — although it is a false sense of security due to a higher risk of collisions on sidewalks — are penalized with a $113 ticket. The number of these tickets issued by the Winnipeg Police Service doubled in 2020 compared to 2019, from 43 tickets to 87. The majority of these tickets were concentrated in Winnipeg’s Point Douglas and North End neighbourhoods where:

Neighbourhoods are predominantly composed of marginalized and low-income people.
Neighbourhoods are more likely to see people cycling as an affordable mode of transportation.
Neighbourhoods often have little to no cycling infrastructure.
Neighbourhoods are under-resourced and over-policed.

As a result, there has been an inequitable distribution of cycling tickets in these areas where the lack of infrastructure induces the behaviour to ride on sidewalks.

Associate Professor of city planning at the University of Manitoba, Orly Linovski, researched ticketing data from 2018 to 2020, finding that the majority, if not all tickets, were from North End neighbourhoods. When looking at other neighbourhoods, the number of tickets was almost non-existent, “registering either zero or one ticket for all three years” she says.

As a response to many organizations and activists concerned about this ticketing trend, Winnipeg’s Public Works Department said “riding a bicycle on a city sidewalk is not allowed. We encourage cyclists to follow the law and utilize the approximately 400 KM of designated cycling paths that are currently in place in the city.” If there were city-wide designated cycling paths to use, riders would jump at the opportunity to use them over risking their safety on roads or sidewalks. Unfortunately, the 400 KM of designated cycling paths referenced are largely disconnected, unprotected, and are mostly found in low-density areas.

*Source:* *Google Maps. Map of Winnipeg’s Bike Infrastructure Highlighted in Green, Predominantly Located in Winnipeg’s South End.*

Instead of providing connected, safe, and comfortable cycling infrastructure in the communities that need them most, the police service has punished people for trying to get around as best they can. Much more needs to be done to provide everyone with real mobility options, ones that are affordable, accessible, and safe, and do not require heavy enforcement to fill in the gaps created by poor design.

Source: Nicole Roach. Woman Riding Bike in a Temporary Two-Way Bike Lane on Henderson Highway in Winnipeg, during “Reimagine Henderson”, an Organized Pop-up Organized by the Glenelm Neighbourhood Association.

Taking Transit in Toronto

Like many other Canadian transit operators at the beginning of the pandemic, the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) suspended fare enforcement to help relieve financial costs to travellers. As much as this was necessary for riders, it negatively affected the TTC and other Canadian transit operators' budgets, as they have an over-reliance on fares due to a lack of government funding. The TTC rebooted its fares in August 2020, including the return of fare inspectors and a $425 ticket for fare evasion to recover the $92 million lost from the pandemic — a number much larger than it’s loss from fare evasion.

As ridership at the beginning of the pandemic decreased on the TTC, so did the number of transit operators. Approximately 1,200 were laid off, making room to hire 50 more enforcement personnel to police and surveille fare evasions as a ‘solution’ to lost revenue. Instead of using enforcement to secure funds, it sounds like the TTC needs more funding, not more policing. Using enforcement as a solution to the TTC being underfunded won’t ever recover the $92 million lost from the pandemic. It will only target TTC riders, the majority of those being in marginalized communities who depend on the TTC, a trend that was already an issue pre-pandemic.

University of Toronto researchers Akwasi Owusu-Bempah and Scot Wortley conducted a report finding Black and Indigenous people have been “grossly overrepresented” in fare enforcement made by the TTC over the last 10 years. The researchers examined data from 121,819 incidents between 2008 to 2018. Although racial data was missing for approximately 30% of these incidents, the researchers found these groups were still more likely to be charged by TTC fare inspectors than white riders. More specifically, they found Black and Indigenous males were the most common to be encountered and charged by transit officers, something that is unfortunately common across Canada. Although Black people only make up about nine percent of Toronto’s population, they made up for 19.2% of transit enforcements. Similarly, Indigenous people, who make up less than one percent of the population, made up for three percent of transit enforcement encounters.

*Source: Nicole Roach. TTC Tram Moving through Spadina Chinatown, Toronto.*

The TTC has begun working on a “culture change” within the organization, but these measures will not be able to address the real failures in Canada’s transit systems. Rather, government funding models for public transit must be revised to ensure everyone can affordably (better yet, make it free!) move. It should be primarily funded through government money, rather than burdening low-income transit users with costly fares and enforcement — which is never the answer.

Walking in Vancouver

People experiencing homelessness and housing insecurity are usually walking or sitting around cities, as they typically have nowhere else to go. This is primarily due to a lack of housing, services, and programs for these individuals.

The 2010 Winter Olympic Games held in Vancouver significantly impacted these groups' ability to do the few things they could do, like walk or sit around the city. Carleton University researcher, Jacqueline Kennelly, conducted more than 100 interviews with at-risk youth prior to, during, and after the mega sports event. She embarked on this kind of research as Olympic host cities have a record of implementing similar policies to one another to keep city’s most vulnerable out of sight and mind through enforcement.

In Vancouver, this manifested into the Assisting to Shelter Act which allowed police to “clear the streets of the poor, homeless, and addicted just in time for the tourists and cameras to arrive” says The Tyee Journalist, Katie Hyslop. It gave Vancouver Police the position to force someone at risk to seek shelter — something that was not built specifically for the Games — and when shelters are full, police have the power to put these individuals in jail. Not to mention, homelessness in Vancouver more than doubled between 2002 and 2008 in Vancouver and it is suggested the Games influenced this increase through gentrification and clearing of neighbourhoods for tourist attractions.

Prior to the Games, Kennelly’s interviewees would be asked to move if they were panhandling or even just sitting in attractive areas by police. She says “they felt that this was because the Games were coming” and that it was the first effort made to push them out. When they were pushed out, participants often found themselves in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver, which is where drugs, prostitution, and crime are most common — an area many of the reported youth were trying to stay away from in the first place. A similar report in 2009 found Vancouver Police established a “red zone” around areas where Olympic events would take place. One young man said police would say “you’re not even supposed to be in this area” and that they would charge you then and there for walking or sitting nearby. He continued to say “I’ve seen one person get locked up for six months…he was red zoned.”

By “red zoned”, he means this individual’s right to walk within the city was taken away because he is visibly marginalized.

*Source:* *Briarpatch Magazine. Protest in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside for Housing in the Upcoming 2010 Olympic Games.*

As mentioned above, Vancouver did not prepare resources and services for these individuals to keep them off the streets specifically for the Games, like providing adequate housing. In 2005, the 2010 Vancouver Organizing Committee and all three levels of government committed to create “direct benefits and minimize adverse impacts” for the city’s most vulnerable. However, Housing Minister Rich Coleman, believed the Games were unrelated to the province's housing plan and said “we’re not driven by anything to do with the Olympics.” As we’ve read, when there is no equity within the city, transportation, and even Olympic plans, the most vulnerable become even more vulnerable, especially to enforcement.

Inner-city organizations voiced their concerns five years prior to the Games at how the mega-event would affect these groups and called upon the government to “provide an affordable housing legacy and start planning now.” Over ten years later, the effects of not planning for these groups within the Olympics can be seen now in the lack of funding for social services, as they were the first to be cut back to pay off Olympic-related debts.

Although the barriers these individuals faced during the 2010 Olympics could have been relieved through housing, addiction, and poverty services, it demonstrates how the absence of funding and leadership for these tools affect their mobility — the thing that allows people to participate in society. Without it, people are isolated, pushed away, and possibly even forgotten about as they have nowhere else to go besides the place enforcement pushes them to.

**Building Mobility for Everyone in City and Transportation Plans**

As demonstrated, all transportation modes other than driving in Canadian cities have a common gap in design, caused by a lack of funding and government policy. Instead of shifting priorities to make bike, transit, and foot (and wheelchair) mobility reliable and safe for everyone, enforcement is used as a band-aid to cover these gaps in design.

There are many other factors we have yet to discuss in making mobility equitable for everyone, but it is clear enforcement is not one of them. Just like mobility is key for everyone to prosper in urban environments, cities prosper when everyone can move in an affordable, safe, and reliable way.

It’s time we fill these cuts in design, not just cover them up.