ABSTRACT

The COVID-19 pandemic has created severe challenges for public transit systems. This article examines its impact on six Ontario transit systems. Using qualitative data from fourteen interviews with public transit officials and data from municipal documents and public announcements, the article examines whether measures introduced by the transit authorities addressed the issue of transit equity in the pandemic’s first year. The findings show that transit officials were aware of transit inequity—transit service cuts disproportionately affected the most vulnerable. Transit officials also raised issues relating to transit equity in their appeals to senior governments for more funding. It is, however, important not to overstate the prevalence of transit equity at this time. Transit officials and transit documents rarely used the term transit equity and there is limited evidence that considerations of procedural equity influenced decision-making in the period studied. Transit systems were forced to prioritize the maintenance of some level of reduced service during the pandemic with almost no capacity to introduce measures to advance transit equity.

摘要

COVID-19 大流行给公共交通系统带来了严峻挑战。本文研究了它对安大略省六个交通系统的影响。本文使用来自对公共交通官员的 14 次采访的定性数据以及来自市政文件和公告的数据，检验了交通当局采取的措施是否解决了大流行第一年的交通公平问题。调查结果表明，交通官员意识到交通不平等——交通服务削减对最弱势群体的影响尤为严重。交通官员还在呼吁高级政府提供更多资金时提出了与交通公平相关的问题。然而，重要的是不要夸大此时公共交通公平的普遍性。过境官员和过境文件很少使用过境公平一词，而且有限的证据表明程序公平的考虑影响了研究期间的决策。在大流行期间，公交系统被迫优先维持一定程度的服务减少，几乎没有能力采取措施来促进公交公平。