To be truly committed to building safe streets for everyone in our communities, we need to address the systemic racism that exists and perpetuates through the street design process and decision making. Walk Toronto’s values and advocacy prioritizes the urgent need to address these injustices. We are committed to actively educating ourselves, collective listening, and collaborating against systemic racism now and always.
We have put together a list of resources and guides that educate us on systemic racism and oppression around walking experiences and infrastructure. This list is just a small sample of the abundance of resources available online. Over time, we will continue to add to the list.
Toronto
- Desmond Cole, The Skin I’m In: I’ve been interrogated by police more than 50 times—all because I’m black (Toronto Life)
- Jay Pitter, Public Safety at the City’s Core (Azure)
- #defensiveTO, Mapping Defensive TO
- Cara Chellew, Accessibility Measure or Exclusive Architecture? (Azure)
- Sean Marshall, Why pedestrian safety is a matter of justice for essential workers (Marshall’s Musings), and Aria Popal, The duality of Amazon in Scarborough – from delivering jobs to packaging community relations (Spacing Toronto)
- Known to Police (Toronto Star carding investigation)
- Jacqueline L. Scott, Black Outdoors – Sharing the joys of outdoors while Black
Beyond Toronto
- Garnette Cadogan, Walking While Black (Lithub)
- Tamika Butler, Safe Roads for All?
- Topher Sanders, Kate Rabinowitz, and Benjamin Conarck, Walking While Black: Jacksonville’s enforcement of pedestrian violations raises concerns that it’s another example of racial profiling (ProPublica)
- Destiny Thomas, ‘Safe Streets’ Are Not Safe for Black Lives (Bloomberg CityLab)
- Angie Schmitt, Study: Drivers Less Likely to Yield for Black Pedestrians (Streetsblog)
- Barsamian Kahn, Racial Bias in Drivers’ Yielding Behavior at Crosswalks: Understanding the Effect (National Institute for Transportation and Communities)
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Motor Vehicle Traffic-Related Pedestrian Deaths — United States, 2001–2010 (US traffic-related pedestrian death rates by sex, age group, race/ethnicity, and urbanization level)
- Greg Culver, Death and the Car: On (Auto)Mobility, Violence, and Injustice (International Journal for Critical Geographies) (PDF)
- Courtney Coughenour and Joshua Huebner, Examining racial bias as a potential factor in pedestrian crashes (Accident Analysis & Prevention)
- Kate Lowe, Environmental Justice and Pedestrianism: Sidewalk Continuity, Race, and Poverty in New Orleans, Louisiana (Transportation Research Record)
- Sam Bloch, Shade: It’s a civic resource, an index of inequality, and a requirement for public health (Places Journal).
- Matthew A. Raifman and Ernani F. Choma, Disparities in Activity and Traffic Fatalities by Race/Ethnicity (American Journal of Preventive Medicine)
- Olatunji Oboi Reed, We Need to Stop Traffic Deaths. But Is Policing Really the Answer? (Next City)
- Study: Pedestrian Death Rate More Than 2x Higher in Historically Red-Lined Neighborhoods (Streetsblog)
- How Bike/Walk Laws ‘Arrest’ the Mobility of Black Americans (Streetsblog)
