Council of the District of Columbia, Committee on Economic Development Performance Oversight Hearing: Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA)
March 15, 2013
Dear Councilmember Bowser:
Thank you for this opportunity to submit testimony regarding the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA). My name is Julia Strange, and I am and a resident of Ward 1 as well as the Director of Programs and Policy for Collective Action for Safe Spaces (CASS), a local grassroots organization that aims to empower people in the DC metropolitan area to build a community free from public sexual harassment and assault.
Since my organization CASS testified before DC Council at this time last year, WMATA has made progress in addressing sexual harassment and assault within their system. The agency has been very open to meeting with advocacy groups about their anti-sexual harassment efforts, including a recent project status update meeting with CASS and the nonprofit Stop Street Harassment on February 19th. We want to acknowledge WMATA as one of the few transit agencies in the world trying to make public transit safer for all riders, regardless of gender. We particularly applaud the efforts of Caroline Lukas and Deputy Chief Campbell, who have played a key role in WMATA’s progress thus far. However, there is more work to be done.
At the last WMATA performance oversight hearing on February 22, 2012, CASS recommended that WMATA implement a three-pronged approach for preventing sexual harassment and assault within public transit systems:
- Create a multi-agency working group to collect data on the prevalence of public sexual harassment and assault on WMATA;
- Fund a public service announcement (PSA) campaign visible on all buses, trains, and at all bus shelters and metro stations, which would advertise a dedicated telephone number for individuals to report incidents of sexual harassment or assault;
- Train WMATA employees and Metro Transit Police (MTP) on how to appropriately respond to complaints of sexual harassment and assault.
Regarding data, we were pleased to learn that WMATA intends to add more drop-down menus to its online reporting form to capture important location and descriptor information about perpetrators, both to more effectively apprehend perpetrators and to identify hot spots and data trends. With more accurate data about these crimes, WMATA resources can be more effectively focused on problem areas, and serial harassers can be brought to justice. CASS does its part to stress to the public the many benefits of reporting.
Per our recommendations, WMATA launched a PSA campaign in June 2012, modeled after a successful Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) anti-harassment campaign. These PSA ads can be spotted on trains, buses, and in metro stations. CASS has received a lot of feedback, mostly positive, on the PSA campaigns. Through our blog, Twitter account, and Facebook page, we often hear from Metro-users that they feel safer seeing the PSAs and knowing that WMATA has programs in place to take action against sexual harassment and assault. However, we also regularly hear from Metro-users that they would like to see PSAs that target potential perpetrators and bystanders. Given this feedback and current research on effective sexual harassment and assault prevention, CASS strongly recommends that the second phase of PSAs that WMATA intends to release focus on targeting potential perpetrators and bystanders. An effective PSA campaign with this focus would delineate unacceptable harassing behaviors and urge bystanders to actively intervene when safe to do so. Given the daily ridership volume on the metro and bus systems, there are often many witnesses to incidents of harassment, and all too often victims report that bystanders do not step in when they could have helped deescalate the situation or called for help. There exists a significant body of research on bystander intervention as an effective approach to preventing sexual violence, and PSAs offer an effective method of promoting bystander engagement. We also recommend that WMATA collaborate with the District Department of Transportation (DDOT) to tailor and place PSAs at bus shelters.
We applaud WMATA’s efforts to ensure widespread visibility of its PSA campaign; however, WMATA employee training on how to properly and sensitively handle reports of sexual harassment and assault remains a critical missing component. We recognize that staff training on this scale takes time to coordinate and implement, however we would like to see more of a sense of urgency from WMATA leadership in reducing red tape and ensuring that adequate resources are made available to make this training happen. Though we are very pleased that the WMATA online reporting form and PSAs exist to promote reporting, we want to ensure that reports are taken seriously by all WMATA personnel, not just MTP. I do want to recognize the positive blog submissions we’ve received, including a reader who praised a quick-acting Metro employee who called security when she reported a man taking upskirt photos on the metro escalator. However, we have also received numerous blog submissions in the past year noting the inefficiency of station managers, conductors, and other WMATA personnel in responding to and even following through on reporting complaints made by victims of harassment. For example, one woman encountered a man publicly masturbating on a metro train and, after reporting to both the train conductor and station manager, she found out days later that nothing had been documented. While boarding a Metro bus, another woman was asked by the Metro bus driver, “Baby, don’t you want to dance for me?” A third woman was groped on a metro platform and, after exiting the station to call MTP, was told that there was nothing they could do because she had already left the station. They did not take down her name or any information about the incident.
These incidents illustrate the importance of effective procedural and victim sensitivity training, which should be provided to Metro Transit Police, station managers, transit workers, and customer service representatives. I want to make clear that training is key to increasing reporting, because a single negative experience of having reported sexual harassment or assault to a Metro employee can prevent the same survivor or other survivors from ever coming forward again. Individuals must feel comfortable and confident that Metro employees will take their reports seriously and take immediate steps to address them.
I would be happy to meet with you or members of your staff to further discuss this testimony or answer any questions you may have. Please feel free to contact me at julia@collectiveactiondc.org or by phone at 202.306.1580. Thank you for considering our perspective.