Abstract

Personal safety is a critical issue for transit riders, particularly for women and gender minorities. Safety concerns can stem from experiences of sexual harassment that those who identify as women frequently face. However, most incidents go unreported, leaving transit agencies without information about the magnitude of the problem.

UCLA graduate student researchers worked with the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) staff to conduct and analyze a survey on their transit system (Muni) of riders’ experiences with harassment, feelings of safety, and potential policy responses. This effort collected 1,613 responses over a two-week period in February and March 2023 through a partnership with the Transit App, a downloadable service for real-time schedule and location tracking of buses and trains. Similar to previous studies, harassment was common: two-thirds of respondents experienced harassment themselves, and around the same share witnessed it. Safety perceptions declined after dark, with less than a third of respondents feeling safe riding at night. Women and gender minorities experienced greater harassment and lower feelings of safety than their male counterparts. People of color, younger people, and people with disabilities also experienced harassment at higher rates.

Several valuable lessons were learned from the process of developing the survey, fielding it, analyzing its results, and turning those results into policy responses, which can assist other transit agencies to address issues of transit safety and harassment on their systems.