Enunciating outrage: Sidewalk mobility injustice and activism

Abstract

This article focuses on winter pedestrian conditions and sidewalk clearing activism in the Canadian city of St. John’s where most sidewalks are left uncleared over its long winters. The study employs ethnographic methods, with a focus on participants’ autoethnographic accounts of navigating the city in winter and advocating for changes in snow clearing – accounts that also form the core of a documentary film directed by the authors. The findings demonstrate how uncleared sidewalks lead to an urban winter environment that is disabling, furthering existing mobility injustices produced by intersections between various forms of inequality and limited public or active transportation options. City residents enunciate their outrage about this situation through physical mobility practices such as walking in the middle of vehicle lanes and self-conscious critiques of everyday idioms about the ‘hardiness’ of residents. This study highlights the importance of taking seasonality into account when examining conditions for pedestrian mobilities.

Keywords:

• Sidewalks
• pedestrianism
• mobility justice
• seasonality
• Canada

Acknowledgements

A warm thank you to all the participants in this project. We are grateful as well for the very helpful suggestions from the anonymous peer reviewers.

Disclosure

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 See e.g. https://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/top-10-snowiest-major-cities-around-the-world/375130.

2 On relative mobilities, see Adey 2006; also see Flamm and Kaufmann 2006 on motility.

3 Future research on drivers’ enunciations, from accommodating to hindering pedestrians, would be valuable.

4 See https://yytsidewalks.info

5 Metrobus services have been extended in recent years and a low-income bus pass program introduced. Some buses have accessible ramps and there is GoBus Accessible Transit for some. However, bus services are still inadequate. As David Brake (2021) of the Essential Transit Association outlines, public transit is a province-wide problem. Active transportation in St. John’s is also hindered by poor cycling infrastructure although some improvements are currently being made following activism.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported with financial and in-kind support from the Faculty of Education and the Digital Research Centre for Qualitative Fieldwork (Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences), Memorial University.