A survey conducted by the transit agency of Los Angeles County found a significant drop in the number of female passengers riding buses and trains, with close to 50% of them citing crime, sexual harassment and safety as concerns.
Comparing a survey taken this year between March and May of more than 12,000 LA Metro customers, to a survey conducted in early 2020 just before the coronavirus pandemic outbreak, female bus ridership fell from 53% to 49%, while female rail ridership dropped from 46% to 44%.
Female bus and rail riders alike listed safety concerns as the five top areas needing improvement, including safety from crime; sexual harassment or racial or ethnic harassment; cleaner buses, trains and stations; and reducing homelessness and related issues.
In total, safety issues listed by female rail riders amounted to 55% of the responses focused on what needs improvement, followed by train cleanliness at 42% of responses, homelessness at 34% and station cleanliness at 28%. For bus riders, safety issues amounted to 42%, followed by requiring buses to arrive on time at 34%, frequency of buses at 25% and homelessness at 20%.
Bus riders who were satisfied in general dropped steeply from 67% in 2020 to 60% this year. But rail riders’ satisfaction levels remained the same, around 59%.
LA Metro has about 800,000 boardings daily on seven rail lines and 2,200 low-emission buses throughout Los Angeles County. The agency at its meeting on Oct. 27 asked for a report on homeless riders who are forced to exit trains at the end of the runs. The agency recently sent an emailed response to riders and nonprofit transit advocacy groups promoting ways in which LA Metro is working toward safer, more efficient service.
“Metro remains resolved in our efforts to improve the customer experience by listening to our riders’ concerns and acting on them quickly,” said Glendale City Council Member and Metro Board Chair Ara J. Najarianin a prepared statement. “Our system must be safe, clean and reliable and we won’t settle for anything else.”
Oscar Zarate, director of building equity and transit for Strategic Action for a Just Economy (SAJE), who works with women who are transit-dependent Metro riders, said he’s heard the complaints about safety issues.
“Women are experiencing that on transit,” he said, mentioning specific complaints he’s heard involving male passengers touching women inappropriately on buses and at bus stops. “Men say things that are vulgar and just make women feel uncomfortable in general. It’s sad to see that happening when you are just trying to get to work or get back home.”
He said sexual harassment on Metro trains and buses carries over from other aspects of society. “Sexual violence is something rampant; gender violence exists everywhere. It is a deeply rooted issue,” Zarate said in an interview on Monday, Oct. 31. “So I am not surprised.”
Ana Carrion Cordova, who is disabled and rides a Metro bus every weekday to work at Manual Arts High School, then back home, said she’s ridden for many years and often feels unsafe.
“I’ve had people say ‘Get out of the bus’ because I am a Mexican woman. I felt very bad and I was angry,” she said during an interview on Oct. 31 that brought her to tears as she spoke.
Carmina Calderon, an organizer with Community Power Collective, which focuses on housing and transit justice in Boyle Heights and East Los Angeles, has been a lifelong transit rider. She now occasionally rides the L (Gold) Line and the Red (B) Line trains.
“This has been a constant concern for women riders,” she said in an interview on Tuesday, Nov. 1.
Some of the women she’s working with in Latino communities ride the bus and rails to get to work, to shop for food and to drop off their children because they do not own cars. Latinx/Hispanics are the largest ethnic group using Metro, representing 58 percent of riders.
Recently, some riders have told her that they don’t feel safe after sunset. Or, they said, when a bus does not show up and they’re waiting an hour or more, they abandon mass transit and order a Lyft or an Uber ride.
“The really scary part for me as to riding the rails is when there is no one on the platform,” Calderon said. She’s hoping that the new Metro Transit Ambassadors will populate train platforms and provide a modicum of safety.
Metro CEO Stephanie Wiggins reported a 5.73% decrease in crime on the transit system from February to July and a 13.3% decrease in July and August. “But we need to go further,” she said at the Oct. 27 Metro board meeting. “Reliability, safety, cleanliness and homelessness are top concerns among Metro riders,” she added, summarizing the survey results.
The first group of Metro ambassadors, who wear bright-colored T-shirts but are not armed, provide scheduling information to passengers. They also provide temporary housing options to homeless riders, while reporting more serious incidents to security and nearby law enforcement.
The first group of Metro ambassadors went to work last month, Wiggins said. They are stationed on the K Line in South LA and in the next two weeks will be patrolling Union Station in Downtown Los Angeles and the B (Red) Line and D (Purple) Line.
She said rail ridership is at just 65% of what it was before the pandemic. Bus ridership as of September was at 70% of pre-pandemic levels. The new K Line. which opened Oct. 7, is averaging 2,000 riders on weekdays, she said.
Metro has added security to enforce Metro rules, as well as more security cameras and lighting.
To address one cleanliness issue, Metro has replaced cloth seats on buses and trains with vinyl seats that are easier to clean and maintain. As of August, 49% of bus seats and 89% of rail car seats have been replaced, the agency reported on Oct. 27.
“We are putting their feedback into action, and the first step in doing that is transparently sharing what we learned from them,” said Wiggins in a prepared statement.
