TW: Mention of sexual assault.
The Toronto Transit Commission (TTC), like any public transit system, offers an opportunity for different people to interact during their daily commutes. As a student who commutes every day, I’ve found that the TTC can offer a platform to meet interesting and kind people. However, throughout the years of commuting alone in Toronto, I’ve found that the simultaneously cramped and lonely environment can also be ground zero for harassment and assault.
It is well known to both the TTC itself and the Torontonians who use it that you can come across uncomfortable and even dangerous situations while riding a bus, streetcar or the subway. The TTC has received a total of 55 reports of sexual assault within the first seven months of this year alone, and there was a total of 67 reports in 2016. In an attempt to combat the rising rates of assaults, the TTC has launched what their chair has referred to as one of “the most important campaigns the TTC has undertaken in recent memory”.
#ThisIsWhere
The #ThisIsWhere campaign is an initiative that has included eye-grabbing and blunt posters to be put up throughout public transit and the launch of a harassment reporting phone app. This campaign aims to raise awareness on the prevalence of harassment on the TTC and to increase the reporting of incidents, and is nearly impossible to miss if you commute regularly. Although any initiative aimed at targeting harassment in our city is a positive step towards an important goal, the #ThisIsWhere campaign falls short of doing just that.
With the help of their posters, the campaign encourages victims to report assaults through their new app which can accept reports through text or photos. If there is no internet connection when making a report, the app will save it and send it when the phone connects to Wi-Fi. Despite the posters telling real stories of victims who have been targets of homophobia, racism, ableism and sexual assault, among other forms of harassment and assault, the app cannot be the end solution to targeting the harassment the posters have brought attention to.
Source: CBC
Where It Falls Short
Using an app as the vehicle for reporting doesn’t actually create an accessible or easy reporting tool for everyone. Margaret Chown, a Torontonian who was groped on a TTC escalator, spoke with VICE and argued that not everyone has a smartphone, those who do may not think to use their phone when experiencing or witnessing harassment and assault, and that the app places the “onus on the victim”.
Despite creating an additional channel for reporting–that would have been great if combined with other interventions–the emphasis needs to be put into preventing these incidents in the first place. For the TTC to bring awareness to the scope of the issue in our system and offer the app as its only solution is wholly inappropriate. At the core of its campaign, the TTC should have facilitated a larger conversation about how there can be reforms in the system to ensure that reports are escalated appropriately, that survivors are being taken seriously and that reports will be investigated.
Cassandra Meyers who coordinates the Sexual Assault Survivor Support Line at Ryerson University told VICE that “It feels [like] it’s more for people who haven’t experienced violence. Oh, by the way, there’s violence that happened here—don’t forget it.’ Like OK, I can’t forget it. That’s the point.”
The TTC is a prime location for people to target others. Our public transit system is characterized by empty subway platforms, long stops underground between stations and absent personnel outside the ticket area. With this campaign, the TTC has had an opportunity to not only begin a conversation but also to introduce real and practical interventions to increase vigilance in our system. An app will not prevent an incident from occurring. At best, it can only provide more insight into the scope of the issue through reporting statistics, a scope which is painfully clear as a daily commuter.
Source: The Toronto Star
What Can We Improve?
Change can start with placing TTC personnel on subway platforms during hours of operation. There should be a system in place that guarantees subways aren’t stuck underground between stations for long periods of time (which occurs even more frequently at night), and the TTC shouldn’t close bus platforms late at night, forcing commuters to walk onto poorly lit streets to catch their bus ride home. I’d also like to see some interventions introduced for bus/streetcar stops – or does the TTC feel like this is outside of their responsibility?
These changes will, of course, cost money, take time and require input from different groups of people to ensure that everyone is being served by the interventions (spoiler: the #ThisIsWhere campaign used those resources, too). When speaking about the campaign, a Toronto Women’s City Alliance steering committee member said, “The app is a great first step, but it’s a drop in a much larger bucket of a conversation that needs to be happening about accessibility, inclusivity, and safety on transit.”
In response to a 2015 widely publicized incident where a 17-year old girl and another woman were accosted on the subway and nobody came to their aid, Toronto Police Spokesperson Victor Kwong said that it’s not uncommon to see “people not giving a shit… By doing nothing, you’re allowing these crimes, whether serious or petty, to continue.” The #ThisIsWhere campaign falls short on encouraging people to step in during incidents that they witness on public transit and providing education on how to do it safely. Interventions can involve talking to the victim or walking with them off the subway car. They can also be encouraged to take the initiative to press the yellow strip or alert the bus driver. Without providing other practical solutions to the issue, this campaign has offered little that didn’t exist before.
Where Else These Campaigns Have Generated Controversy
Toronto is not the only city to have implemented a controversial anti-harassment campaign. A campaign launched in Mexico City, a city which has female-only carriages and buses, placed a “penis seat” on subways earlier this year. The seat is a 3D model of a male torso and genitalia with a sign above that reads “men only”. When someone sits on the seat and looks down, there’s a sign that reads, “It’s uncomfortable to sit here but not as uncomfortable as the sexual violence women suffer every day in their commute”. Some have said that this campaign was a refreshing welcome from anti-harassment campaigns that usually target women and/or victims. There were also critics, like a woman named Ninde who was assaulted by a male who came onto a female-only carriage, who said that “It seems to ridicule sexual harassment… I feel a little outraged that there are no real actions to eradicate the problem.”
Photos left to right: “Only for men” (Daily Mail), Penis seat (Global Citizen), “It’s uncomfortable to sit here but not as uncomfortable as the sexual violence women suffer every day in their commute ” (Daily Mail)
The conversation started by #ThisIsWhere is an important one and deserves our attention front and centre at all times, even during our exhausting morning commute. However, this is just the beginning of a series of changes involving infrastructure and public perceptions that need to be implemented. We need to keep talking about how to better serve victims of harassment and assault while ensuring that they are believed by those they report to. We need to keep talking about how we can intervene as witnesses without inflicting further trauma on the victims. We need to keep talking about the long-lasting impact that experiencing harassment and assault can have on victims and not just treat incidents as a simple report. Without implementing systemic changes into our transit and enforcement system, it is unfortunate but also inevitable that there will be more #ThisIsWhere stories to be told by Toronto’s commuters.
Cover photo source: Fotonia