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Documenting and Combatting Transit Passenger Harassment: An Analysis of SB434 Data
We will analyze data collected by the ten largest California transit agencies to understand the extent and nature of street harassment experienced by their passengers. The agencies were directed to perform research into passenger harassment, under a 2023 California law ("Senate Bill 434: Transit operators: street harassment survey"--hereafter, SB 434). The agencies are the Alameda-Contra Costa Transit District, San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District, Los Angeles Department of Transportation, Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Long Beach Transit, Orange County Transportation Authority, Sacramento Regional Transit District, San Diego Metropolitan Transit System, San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, and Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority.
The legislation refers to an earlier law, SB 1161, to define street harassment as “words, gestures, or actions directed at a specific person in a public place…that the person experiences as intimidating, alarming, terrorizing, or threatening to their safety.” These harassing actions may target the victim on account of personal characteristics such as “sex, race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, ethnic group identification, age, mental disability, physical disability, medical condition, genetic information, marital status, or sexual orientation.”
SB 434 directs the agencies to gather information on the passenger experience of street harassment in two ways: (1) a survey of the general ridership, and (2) qualitative methods targeting the experiences of groups of riders who are typically both less likely to complete surveys and also particularly likely to be victims of street harassment, such as women, gender-nonconforming riders, immigrants, and people with disabilities. The all original data collected was to be made publicly available by December 31, 2024.
The research project will explore two questions:
A. What is the nature, extent, and impact of street harassment experienced by passengers on the SB 434 operators, and how does that experience vary by rider characteristics and by agency?
B. What are effective practices that agencies can adopt to combat the problem of street harassment?
We will analyze all survey and qualitative data that the agencies make available, from two perspectives: (1) for each transit agency independently and (2) pooled across all 10 operators, where parallel question wording makes pooling feasible. This dual-level approach will capture both agency-specific and state-wide insights into passenger experiences.
To complement the data analysis, we will review the scholarly and grey literature about street harassment on transit and interview transit agency staff to learn about best practices in addressing passenger harassment.
University:
San José State University
Principal Investigator:
Asha Weinstein Agrawal, PhD
PI Contact Information:
asha.weinstein.agrawal@sjsu.edu
San Jose State University
Dates:
June 2025 to August 2026
Impacts/Benefits of Implementation:
The study results will help transit operators to reduce passenger harassment. Street harassment creates serious barriers to transit ridership, especially for certain groups of people who are targeted the most frequently. Street harassment creates feelings of fear and lack of safety, leading many riders to decrease their transit use and limit their mobility options. Studies find that the fear of street harassment leads some riders to avoid using transit, only use it under specific circumstances (e.g., only during daytime or if traveling with a companion), and/or experience feelings of fear and stress while in transit environments. These fears can be based on direct experiences, seeing others harassed, or hearing about other people’s experiences.
Anticipated end users are:
● The SB 434 transit agencies will use the study results to refine their understanding of how their passengers experience harassment. Our planned analysis will go beyond what is reported in agency-published reports. In addition, the cross-agency comparison will allow agencies to understand if and where the harassment on their systems differs from that experienced at other large transit properties.
● Transit agencies across California (and elsewhere) will benefit from understanding what types of harassment are near universal and which may depend on unique local circumstances. This insight can help agencies take useful proactive measures even if they are not able to not collect information about harassment from their own passengers.
● Transit agencies can use the findings to help design future surveys or other research efforts to understand passenger harassment. The report will carefully analyze how survey findings from one agency to the next may result from different question wording or different survey sampling methods. These insights will inform future transit agency data collection efforts.
● Transit agencies will benefit from the review of effective practices that agencies are using to combat harassment. This topic is very poorly covered in the professional and scholarly literature.
● Advocacy organizations and other stakeholders concerned with transit passenger harassment will use the study results to better understand the nuances of the problem. In addition, stakeholders can use the study results as evidence of the need for transit agencies adopt strategies to reduce passenger harassment.
● Scholars will build on the results in future research about crime and harassment on transit.
Project Number:
2544
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Contact Us
SJSU Research Foundation 210 N. 4th Street, 4th Floor, San Jose, CA 95112 Phone: 408-924-7560 Email: mineta-institute@sjsu.edu
