ABSTRACT
In December 2013, the Société de Transport de Montréal (STM), Montréal’s public transit corporation, published a newsletter for paratransit users in which they proudly announced that 94 per cent of users were satisfi ed with the service. The Montréal disability rights organisation addressing public transit issues specifi cally, Regroupement des usagers du transport adapté et accessible de l’Île de Montréal ( RUTA de Montréal ), did not question that statistic. As paratransit users involved in the disability community, we knew that this statistic did not refl ect disabled people’s experiences. As regular users of social media, we also noted that the STM was increasingly using Facebook and Twitter to promote their services and to interact with their customers, 1 yet disabled clients and the accessibility features of their services were not taken into consideration. 2 STM’s digital shift had left disabled users behind. Furthermore, the Montréal disability rights movement itself did not use social media to advocate for better public transit. History was repeating itself. Convinced that the use of social media by disabled people had to be an integral part of disability activism, we created a Facebook group called Transport mésadapté (Disabling transit). 3 Following Stella Young’s (2013) observations that disabled people rarely tell their own stories, we hoped to create an online space for disabled people and their allies to share their experiences and discuss strategies to eradicate the discrimination they face in public transportation in the province of Québec.
