Have your say... Participate in the Safe in Public Space Survey

Safe in Public Space aims to broaden the definition of public safety to address new public health challenges as well as systemic inequities intensified by COVID-19. Our goal is to better understand how we can create a safe space for everyone at The Bentway. Part of this initiative involves the research, editorial content, and creative projects that you can see here on the Safe in Public Space website. The other major part of this initiative is listening – listening deeply to users, neighbours, partners, and friends talk about differing experiences of safety at The Bentway and in public space more generally.

We’ve been working with PROCESS to help facilitate this deep listening. So far we’ve worked with them to conduct 23 in-depth one-on-one interviews exploring safety in public space. The interviews explored a range of experiences and perspectives, including those of public space practitioners and operators, local residents, social service organizations, designers, planners and architects, vulnerable and underserved communities, and more. A number of themes and questions emerged from these interviews. How does diversity and inclusion impact your experience of a space? Do relationships and supportive networks in public space improve your sense of safety? Do activated spaces feel more or less safe? Can physical design and planning make a difference?

We’ve worked with these themes to create a public survey, which will help us gain broader understanding of experiences of safety at The Bentway and in the surrounding areas. We want to understand who feels safe and unsafe in public space within our neighbourhood, why, and when. We launch the survey today and encourage you to respond and share it with your friends and networks. We are distributing the survey broadly in order to get feedback from a diverse range of people and communities. The survey will be supplemented by additional 1-on-1 interviews and targeted outreach to local stakeholders who might otherwise be overlooked. All our neighbours deserve to be heard.

Early next year we’ll be making sense of all the Safe in Public Space related research, interviews, and creative experiments, and developing specific, renewed safety commitments for The Bentway. We’re excited to learn, share, and grow together.  

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Looking Back, Moving Forward: How Public Health Shaped Toronto