This report reflects on a collaborative advocacy research project I undertook in partnership with the Fair Fare Coalition (FFC), a transit activist and advocacy organization in
Toronto. The project is a community-based research project on transit affordability involving the participation of low-income Torontonians throughout the city. The purpose was to bring together voices that are usually excluded from official city planning discourses and decision-making processes to highlight some of the frequently unaccounted for "costs" of increasing transit fares in Toronto – for example, on individual and community health and well-being. Through this, the Fair Fare Coalition hoped to build capacity and mobilize knowledge towards advocating for policy measures to increase transit affordability in Toronto.
The participatory project's goals and outcomes are twofold. One goal is for the participatory process to culminate in a project deliverable that could be used for advocacy
purposes in support of the Fair Fare Coalition's advocacy goals. The second goal is increasing community knowledge-building and mobilization, including ongoing political and advocacy actions. This is to highlight the fact that both the process and outcome are valuable and important.
For the purposes of this report, I will contextualize and situate the significance of the FFC project in Toronto, providing background, exploring relevant literature, and explaining the
importance of the research methodology. I will then share brief findings from the research, and provide analysis of both the outcomes and process of the research project
