Riding Ambiguity: How Riders Define and React to Vulnerability in the Uncertain Nature of Public Transportation

• In Event: Perceptions of Crime and Safety in Public Housing and Transportation

Abstract

Drawing on 44 in-depth interviews with three groups of subway riders—low-income, Middle Eastern/South Asian, and East Asian New Yorkers—this empirical analysis explores what subway riders “see” and “say” in response to campaigns aimed at raising awareness about risks in the context of the subway’s deeply ingrained “mind-your-business” culture. Grounded in the bystander effect and altruism literature, this analysis employs an intersectional lens, considering race, class, gender, and age. It examines riders’ thresholds of civil inattention, their cultural repertoires to protect themselves from external threats while avoiding being perceived as threats, and their willingness to report incidents.
Understanding how riders define risk and the cultural repertoires they use to navigate the subway is crucial for designing effective policies that rely on specific forms of reinforcement and aim to challenge a dominant culture in such a unique, unpredictable context.

Author

• Maria Barrera-Vilert, Loyola University New Orleans