Cities everywhere are grappling with a rise in vehicle-ramming attacks. While some of these are acts of terrorism, some have been described as having no obvious political motive.Supplied
The Taste of Manila in Toronto is the biggest Filipino festival outside the Philippines. On a recent summer weekend, upwards of 400,000 people gathered to mingle, listen to music and snack on Filipino street food specialties such as deep-fried quail eggs.
Part of the event’s theme was celebrating resiliency, made more poignant by a vehicle-ramming attack on a Filipino festival in Vancouver four months ago that killed 11 people. Reflecting the threat facing such events, the Toronto site was protected by barriers designed to stop rampaging drivers.
Festival founder Rolando Mangante said the city had required a substantial security plan, including the rented barriers, that cost about $86,000. A city grant to defray the cost amounted to about two-fifths of that.
That’s not enough. Street festivals often operate on a shoestring, relying on volunteers and sponsors. At the same time, they add enormous value to cities. They are more than just a financial lift. Bringing people together is central to city life.
Cities without public festivals and street parties would be poorer places, in every sense. So it’s reasonable that cities demanding robust security – which clearly is needed – be more willing to assist.
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This could involve municipalities stocking up on anti-vehicle barriers, the strongest of which can stop a speeding truck, and lending them out for bigger events. Between summer parties, autumn festivals and winter celebrations, they would be in use most weekends.
Large planters are harder to move around but serve a similar purpose, and so do decorative boulders. Even cheaper is providing transit buses, garbage trucks and other large municipal vehicles to block hostile access to festival-goers.
Cities everywhere are grappling with a rise in vehicle-ramming attacks. Some of these are acts of terrorism, but an online compilation lists nearly 160 attacks described as having no obvious political motive. The pace is accelerating: three-quarters of these occurred in the last 15 years.
In many places, the increasing prevalence of this sort of attack has been met by a lack of serious preparation.
In New Orleans, where 14 people were killed in a New Year’s Eve attack, bollards meant to stop this sort of tragedy had been removed for replacement. In the interim, a police vehicle was parked across the end of the street. The killer easily bypassed that barrier – by driving up on the sidewalk.
After the attack in Vancouver, the police chief said the pre-event risk assessment turned up no evidence of a specific threat to the festival. But a feature of these sorts of attacks is that many are targeted acts only inasmuch as the driver goes to where the crowds are.
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That makes all festivals potential targets, and makes cities uniquely vulnerable, because their concentrated masses of people – the very thing that makes cities desirable and functional – have been exposed as their soft underbelly.
The threat hostile drivers can pose to cities is now so abundantly clear that municipal leaders need to be more ambitious about keeping them away from pedestrians.
Luckily, this is not hard to do. There’s even a template in place. In response to car-bomb attacks in the late 20th century, many sites such as embassies and government buildings were redesigned to make it harder for vehicles to get close. These tactics are as simple as a large concrete flower box, a security measure that becomes part of the landscape.
A similar approach can keep vehicles away from pedestrians, though interventions must be done judiciously. A 2022 academic paper highlights “the potential conflict between protecting public space users from vehicle-ramming attacks and the openness, publicness, and accessibility that is essential to successful urban public spaces.” Fenced-off city streets would make for a grim existence.
Those on foot can’t be protected in all circumstances but it’s overdue to make safer the sidewalks and plazas where pedestrians gather in large numbers.
As well, sections of road need to be fortified when they are turned over to pedestrians for street festivals such as the Taste of Manila. This is too important for the cost to be dumped on community-organized and locally run festivals, potentially blowing up their budgets.
Toronto’s Filipino community showed resilience by coming together to celebrate while still mourning those lost in the Vancouver attack. It shouldn’t have had to pay so much to be able to do so safely.