According to surveys, some 87% of female users of public transport say they have been the victim of sexist or sexual harassment.
Will allow men and women to be dropped off anywhere they want on 10 late-night bus lines, add 650 plainclothes officers, and more.
The 24/7 hotline will be staffed by counselors from the community advocacy organization Peace Over Violence, which has 45 years of experience counseling victims of sexual abuse in Los Angeles County.
The campaign’s message is that sexual assaults will not be tolerated on the T or anywhere else.
Agency has had 35 reports of sexual assault through the end of May. There were 56 sexual assault reports for all of 2014 and 67 in 2015.
The goal of the campaign is to promote awareness that CTA will not tolerate harassment on its trains, buses or other CTA property and to provide helpful information to customers who believe they are the victims of harassment.
To help curb the behavior, awareness posters are being put up in subway cars, buses and stations informing offenders that they can be thrown in jail for five years or be fined more than $82,000 for harassing another citizen.
As part of the system-wide campaign, Metro upgraded its smartphone app, LA Metro Transit Watch, to include a report of “Indecent Exposure,” “Sexual Assault-Physical” and “Sexual Harassment-Non-Physical.” The app also allows a reporting person to snap a photograph of a suspect safely without activating the camera’s flash.
The ads feature hands representing different races and genders to illustrate that harassment is not exclusive to any one group or sex. The concept was developed in collaboration with advocacy groups Collective Action for Safe Spaces and Stop Street Harassment, who have worked closely with Metro on this issue.
As part of a semi-annual customer review, the agency asked more than 22,000 bus and rail passengers if they had experienced "unwanted sexual behavior including, but not limited to, touching, exposure, or inappropriate comments" over a six-month period.
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