It’s nearly been five years since a group of us testified before the DC City Council to pressure the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) to do something about sexual harassment — and they did.
A year ago when we met to talk about next steps, one of their commitments was to a third wave of anti-harassment PSAs. They were supposed to be done in April but after many many delays, they are now up across the system. Huge kudos to Jessica Raven at our collaborating org Collective Action for Safe Spaces for adamantly saying the ads should include focusing on some of the demographics we know are facing a lot of harassment, like trans women of color and Muslim women. Then, when WMATA said there was a lack of stock photos of these two demographics, Jessica suggested she could provide photos of people she knew (with their permission). That inspired WMATA to hold their own photo-shoot and the resulting photos are beautiful.
As of Nov. 10, WMATA told us,
“Riders should see ads at the following stations:
Anacostia, Archives, Ballston, Benning Road, Bethesda, Branch Avenue, College Park, Columbia Heights, East Falls Church, Eastern Market, Eisenhower Ave., Farragut North, Farragut West, Federal Center SW, Federal Triangle, Forest Glen, Fort Totten, Franconia-Springfield, Friendship Heights, Gallery Place, Glenmont, Greenbelt, Huntington, Judiciary Square, King Street, L’Enfant Plaza, Landover, McPherson Square, Metro Center, Mt. Vernon-UDC, National Airport, Navy Yard, New Carrollton, Pentagon City, Prince George’s Plaza, Rhode Island Avenue, Smithsonian, Stadium Armory, Takoma Park, U Street-Cardoza, Union Station, Van Dorn, Vienna, West Falls Church, West Hyattsville, Wheaton, Woodley Park.
Additionally, the ads will be in rotation on the 10 touchscreen digital panels at: Capital South, Gallery Place, Federal Triangle, Foggy Bottom, Pentagon, Farragut North, Farragut West, and Metro Center.”
This year we also worked with WMATA on the first-ever transit-wide survey on sexual harassment (results) and an outreach day at several Metro stations during International Anti-Street Harassment Week. They also began doing sexual harassment training for their bus operators.
