Riding While Female

The aptly named Tropical Storm Ophelia inundated New York City last September, flooding the streets, then deluging the subway. If we had built more absorbent infrastructure above ground, the water would never have cascaded at such a rapid clip down the steps and tracks. The all-too-familiar images of extreme weather forcing its way underground once again opened the subway up to mockery, though the transit system suffered simply for existing downstream from these above-ground societal choices.

Subway flooding serves as an emblem for so many areas in which we have not addressed root causes, but instead scapegoated the place where we see consequences in focus. Another poignant example of this lack of big-picture thinking can be found in subway crimes, particularly those perpetrated against women.

The transit system is forced to answer for a societal failing in which women are far too often the victims of unwanted, or violent, touching. More than a billion trips were taken on the subway in 2023, and of the 4,486 sex-based crimes reported to the NYPD on those rides, the vast majority (3,916) were forcible touching. Of note, these crimes were the ones reported to police; the actual numbers are likely significantly greater. 

Is this a lot or a little? There’s no easy answer to the question. Plenty of crime numbers are also grim above ground (though shootings and murders have dropped significantly) — demonstrating that it is not the environment that causes this behavior. Still, the problems should be taken especially seriously when they crop up on the subway, an enclosed space that functions as a public square. Furthermore, according to the U.S. Census 2022 American Community Survey, in every New York City borough, a higher proportion of women ride public transportation than men do, showcasing the urgency of solutions.

Gender-based crimes are not new. Women in early-1900s U.S. cities used hatpins to fight back against male aggressors. In 1909, there was an unsuccessful attempt to offer a women-only subway car in New York City. Providing a safe experience for female and femme-presenting riders remains a challenge to this day. And it goes well beyond the subways. In response to complaints by women about gender-based hostility by ride-hail drivers, Lyft not long ago launched Women+ Connect, a matching service for women and nonbinary drivers to match with similarly identifying passengers.

At the NYU Rudin Center for Transportation Policy and Management, we conducted a small survey in 2018 about women’s experiences on public transportation in New York City. We called the report the “Pink Tax on Transportation,” referring to the additional costs of time and money women often expend to ensure their safety and, additionally, accommodate care-based travel for young children, elderly parents or other dependents. Among other findings, 75% of women (compared to 47% of men) responded that they had been subject to harassment or theft on public transportation.

While the vast majority of transit rides are uneventful, incidents that range from uncomfortable to violent leave indelible marks on riders and on the overall perception of safety, which hinders transit ridership on the whole. In our survey, 54% of female respondents reported being concerned about being harassed while using public transportation, compared to only 20% of male respondents.

This is a worldwide problem, not a New York one. Multiple studies have shown that women’s avoidance of public transportation limits their economic participation, educational opportunities and general sense of having a “right to the city.”

Perhaps the most interesting part of our study was the public responses it elicited. They ranged from eye-rolling (“The sky is blue,” said some people — as though we were simply restating the obvious), to reasonable (complaints that the survey size of 547 was too small), to expansive (pointing out that Black and trans women, and women with disabilities, seem to be disproportionately targeted in random violence); to unreasonable (“women should flash guns on the trains”), to defensive (“#notallmen” harass or assault women). One retiree faxed me her court records from a horrendous event in the 1980s. And women transportation leaders reached out from Los Angeles, Washington, Toronto, Paris and more, wanting to discuss solutions, as their transit systems experienced similar challenges.

At least nine major international cities offer the obvious but clunky treatment that New York considered in 1909: corralling riders into train cars and buses by gender. Women in Mexico City, Osaka, Cairo, Mumbai and elsewhere can ride single-gender subway trains (available either all day or part-time). In Karachi, women can ride “pink bus” routes, now expanding due to their popularity. But segregating the population by gender in an attempt to make the ride itself safer for women is immensely impractical to organize and enforce, and it does nothing to improve safety in trips to and from the station, so we have to think bigger.

In order to identify some solutions, we at the Rudin Center, with support from NYU Tandon’s C2SMARTER and the New York State Research and Development Authority, gathered three focus groups. In late 2020, we met on Zoom with 65 transportation leaders from across the city and country. We shared stories and built on one another’s ideas to improve rider safety and caregiving challenges.

By the last session, we had identified seven “opportunities for innovation.” Four stand out as areas ripe for exploration:

Conducting a gender audit. An adage of urban planning is that if women avoid a location, it’s likely unsafe. However, there is no requirement or standard to study the differential impacts of environments by gender. When planning future transportation projects, the MTA and New York City Department of Transportation can utilize gender-disaggregated data and a gender-lens review to make transit environments feel safe for all users above and below ground. This work has already been conducted successfully by the Los Angeles Metro, which published a groundbreaking report in 2019, “Understanding How Women Travel.” Their takeaway from the follow-up Gender Action Plan showed that 83% of transit riders thought favorably of a Transit Ambassador Program, in which station personnel would be stationed more widely across platforms, bus stops and aboard buses and trains.

Improving incident reporting. The crime reporting process likely dramatically undercounts forcible touching incidents because of the burden of reporting details to the police in person, which is time-consuming and often feels futile due to the difficulties of catching, identifying and prosecuting perpetrators. Notably, the Tokyo Metropolitan Police offers an app that blares calls for help when its user is groped, a feature that addresses the problem and entrusts bystander intervention. By building a dedicated app or texting system for reporting such incidents — including easy uploading of images, recordings, locations and other data — riders could more easily file reports (rather than, or in addition to, posting the videos on social media). The NYPD announced a similar initiative with its Step Forward app last year, but it continues to be “in development,” according to an NYPD spokesperson. 

Rethinking the blocks around stations. Building on the community alliances and mutual aid networks that arose from COVID and other events, we should take smart steps to bolster the safety of the immediate neighborhoods surrounding subway stations to make it easier for women to find safe walking paths between subway stations, home and work. Community groups, neighborhood associations, parent associations, business improvement districts and others can develop localized solutions that might include better signage, volunteer chaperones, “walking school buses” (groups traveling to and from school for safety in numbers) and training in the deescalation of incidents. Social media tools can help residents connect with walking partners and identify nearby late-night businesses with eyes on the street. 

Expanding shared micromobility. As bike, e-bike and scooter use proliferates, it is worth noting that New York City has way too few protected lanes, a big problem given that women who bike often report the need for such infrastructure. New York City officials should also consider adding to micromobility sharing networks new vehicle designs that accommodate cargo and offer child seats or companion kids’ bikes, as some international bike shares have piloted. Putting more bikes and scooters in the right places can alleviate some riders’ concerns about transit. They can offer alternative modes for first- and last-mile travel when transit stations are long walks away.

While no singular solution exists to solve the challenges of keeping women safe on subways, we can make trains, platforms and the space around stations safer, which would ultimately benefit all transit users. As Hurricane Ophelia should have reminded us, we need to plan for all kinds of weather.