Metro Survey Shows Increase in Harassment Reporting

A new survey released by Metro shows reporting harassment incidents has increased compared to the previous study in 2016.

Metro teamed up with the Collective Action for Safe Spaces and Stop Street Harassment to build on a previous survey done two years ago that measured how often victims report incidents that occur on Metro, according to a news release.

The 2018 survey shows that 50 percent of victims of harassment were more likely to report the incident compared to 33 percent in 2016.

“Sexual harassment ranges from verbal to physical and is a significant problem on transit systems nationwide,” said Stop Street Harassment Founder and Executive Director Holly Kearl. “I’m proud that WMATA is undertaking various efforts to curb it on their system. I’m encouraged to see from the latest survey that the campaign is successfully encouraging more people to speak out and report harassment that they experience or witness.”

In addition to harassment reporting,  Metro’s public outreach campaign regarding harassment  was measured in the survey. Results show that 47 percent of Metro customers are familiar with the anti-harassment education campaign, up from 41 percent two years ago.

The report represents the findings of a 1,000 person, regionally representative survey conducted in March by a third-party vendor.

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