The term “diffusion of responsibility” typically refers to situations in which individuals are unlikely to act or assume responsibility in the presence of a large group. More commonly known as ‘the bystander effect,’ it can also be observed around issues where multiple stakeholders are involved in providing solutions.
In the context of active transportation (AT) – walking, cycling, or other forms of non-motorized travel – the stakeholders are varied, including urban planners, transportation engineers, public health professionals and policymakers. Each of these groups has a role to play, and the responsibility for promoting and managing AT is distributed or “diffused” among them. Their responsibilities are often internally diffused among many departments of the same government.
Layered on top of the diverse stakeholder base, we have varied jurisdiction which results in diffusion among multiple orders of government. The Ontario Highway Traffic Act determines types of vehicles that are permissible on roads, speed limits on provincial roads, design standards for provincial roads and for intersections with those roads and municipal roads. Cycling infrastructure is typically designed and implemented municipally but guided by the Ontario Traffic Manual Book 18 (provincial) and the Transportation Association of Canada Geometric Design Guide for Canadian Roads (federal).
Finally, the interdisciplinary nature of AT means the plans that establish our AT objectives are dispersed and thus rarely directly accountable. Our AT goals can be nested within traditional transportation plans but are often found within climate action plans, Vision Zero plans, public health plans, public realm plans or complete streets plans. We rarely come across standalone AT Plans. Because our plans contain our goals and objectives, we now have a diffusion of ambition and accountability.
Politics Professor David Miller (University of Oxford) argues that the problem of diffused responsibility and resultant inaction can be solved in one of two ways. One is through the emergence of an authority with the capacity to single out agents and assign them tasks. He uses an example of helping a person who has collapsed on the street. Using this analogy, this could entail a paramedic arriving on the scene and asking bystanders to do specific tasks to help the victim. This can only work in cases where those present recognize the authority of the paramedic.
The second way we can overcome diffused responsibility is through shared norms that identify one agency as having the responsibility to take the lead. Miller notes these norms do not have to carry the full justificatory load needed to support the intervention. We can probably assume that every bystander looking at the victim would agree that ‘somebody should help that person’. What is missing is an additional norm that can tell us who that somebody is.
Returning to our AT conundrum, we see that we face a battle on two fronts. Governments lack either the desire or authority to single out agents and assign them particular tasks, and we are also missing a shared norm that identifies who the relevant agents are. Vision Zero plans, while aspirational, lack the authority and associated resources to be successful, so a protection gap persists for AT users. Until it is resolved and diffusion is reversed, we can never attain our Vision Zero goals – or at best, we will partially meet them one municipality at a time, where the least resourced municipalities will be the last and least served, as is often the case.
In a province that repeatedly pledges to ‘stand up for the little guy,’ we are continually missing opportunities to stand up for little guys and gals across Ontario and protect our most vulnerable road users. A good start would be to pass Bill 40, Moving Ontarians Safely Act – while not a complete solution, it would at least foster a sense of responsibility and accountability among drivers who share the road with pedestrians, cyclists, and other vulnerable users.
By Kevin Behan, Operations Director