2010

January – First Survivor Focus Group

NYFST hosted a focus group for survivors of harassment and assault on New York’s mass transit system. The focus group offered participants a safe space to share their experiences and address the normalization of gender and discrimination-based violence and harassment on public transportation. Survivors also proposed several approaches to increasing safety and ending violence in mass transit, which will influence the coalition’s future campaigns, community education workshops and outreach initiatives.

2009

February – Victory!

The anti-harassment print campaign that the Coalition secured in 2008 is replicated for the public service (audio) announcements heard in the newest trains throughout the subway system.

March – NYFST is Born!

Coalition Members convened for a day-long strategy planning session to lay down the groundwork regarding the name, mission, vision, guiding principles, structure, and strategies and actions for 2009.

March to June – The Listening Tour

A community base-building and dialogues project with various nonprofit agencies serving women, youth, elders, LGBTQ and LGBTQPOC communities, low-income and similar issue areas that will capture quantitative data of harassment and violence in mass transit, while offering the opportunity to share qualitative information around personal experiences and suggestions for future Coalition campaigns.

June –Taking Back Public Transit: Confronting Violence on Board forum

In response to an ongoing rash of sexual assaults and harassment occurring in the subways, New Yorkers for Safe Transit Coalition organized its first public forum, which was attended by nearly 50 individuals. The forum enabled concerned community members and anti-violence activists to analyze the rampancy of gender-based violence in the New York City public transit system and discuss strategies to address this problem. During the forum, participants also shared with one another practical ways to avoid, deescalate and prevent violence and harassment on public transit.

Speakers included: Cate Contino, Straphangers Campaign; Emily May, HollabackNYC; Mya Vasquez, TransJustice at the Audre Lorde Project; Veronica Tirado, Girls for Gender Equity & Safe Outside the System Collective.

Co-Sponsors included: Ali Forney Center; The Brecht Forum; Center for Anti-Violence Education; FIERCE!; Girls for Gender Equity; GLOBE, a project of Make the Road New York; Gay Men’s Health Crisis; Housing Works; NYC Alliance Against Sexual Assault; RightRides for Women’s Safety; Sauti Yetu; Sex Workers Project; STEPS to End Family Violence; Take Back Our Union, a grassroots campaign within Transit Workers Union-Local 100

November – Testimony

Steering committee members, Oraia Reid (RightRides for Women’s Safety) and Meghan Huppuch (Girls for Gender Equity) testified at a joint City Council hearing for three committees —  transportation, women’s issues and public safety – in support of a bill spearheaded by Councilwoman Jessica S. Lappin that would require NYPD to collect data on sexual harassment in the subways.

2008

July – Partnership

Partnered with Councilmember Peter Vallone and Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer’s Office to call on the MTA to reinstate the public awareness campaign that was created in 2007, based on the recommendation in the Borough President’s report. The MTA shelved the campaign on the unfounded fear that “it would provoke offenders to act”

August – Victory!

The MTA agreed to release the public awareness campaign in September, distributing 2,000 posters in 300 subway cars

September – Testimony

Coalition Members prepared testimony for the New York City Council’s transportation committee entitled “MTA complaint process – Are average riders heard?”   The testimony submitted by the Manhattan Borough President, called on the Chairperson of the New York City Council’s Transportation Committee to: 1) work with the MTA to develop a system to field harassment and assault complaints, quantify the number of complaints fielded by 311, 911, and transit authorities in the stations; 2) work with the NYPD to track subway sexual harassment and assault crimes as stand-alone offenses, across time, borough, individual subway lines, and stations and make these statistics publicly available; 3) amend the MTA’s rider report cards to ask respondents to disclose their gender to determine whether women feel more or less secure in the subway than men; and 4) that the MTA must introduce and upgrade new safety amenities throughout the transit network, including increased personnel on subways, particularly at night and greater training for employees who may field complaints about harassment.

November – Press Statement

Coalition Members publicly respond to recent news that MTA will eliminate or drastically reduce key subway service late-nights and in marginalized neighborhoods, because of budget cuts.

2007

May – Partnership

Partnered with the Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer’s Office to develop and distribute an informal survey to determine the prevalence of sexual harassment and assault in the New York City Subway system

June – Survey and Report

1,780 individuals are surveyed on subway safety. The resulting report, Hidden in Plain Sight: Sexual Harassment and Assault in the New York City Subway System, is released. Of the respondents, 63% experienced sexual harassment and 10% sexual assault on our city’s subways. 96% did not report either witnessing, or being harassed, to the authorities.

July – Press Statement

Founding Member Oraia Reid, Executive Director of RightRides for Women’s Safety, is selected to speak at the press conference, alongside the Borough President and the Straphangers Campaign, announcing the findings of the subway safety report.