{"id":4859,"date":"2023-03-01T08:58:27","date_gmt":"2023-03-01T08:58:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/?p=4859"},"modified":"2023-03-24T09:01:57","modified_gmt":"2023-03-24T09:01:57","slug":"making-public-transit-safer-a-massive-intersection-of-crises","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/?p=4859","title":{"rendered":"Making Public Transit Safer \u2014 A \u2018Massive Intersection of Crises\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Peter White<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

People don\u2019t want to ride public transit for fear of being harassed like Esther Lee was on a New York subway October 21, 2021. Lee, 41, is a Korean American. She was insulted, spit on, and called \u201ca f***g carrier.\u201d She filmed 57-seconds of the ugly encounter on her cell phone. Nobody came to her aid and at 42nd<\/sup> St. Lee got out and switched cars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lee reported the incident to New York\u2019s Hate Crime Unit, but Deputy Inspector Jessica Corey told her she had escalated the situation by filming it and since the man didn\u2019t use an Asian slur, there was no evidence of a hate crime. However, two months later a Civilian Review Panel saw the video and labeled Lee\u2019s case a hate crime. Then she went public to a local TV station.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf cases like mine were not being labeled as a hate crime, that meant that many more similar incidents were being mislabeled and dismissed,\u201d Lee said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Peter Kerre founded\u00a0Safe Walks NYC<\/a><\/em>\u00a0in January 2021. He created an Instagram page, setting up a program of volunteers to walk with people to and from transit stops in Brooklyn. In May 2021\u00a0Safe Walks<\/em>\u00a0expanded to cover Manhattan below 59th<\/sup>\u00a0St.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Esther Lee, who was attacked on the New York subway system, details her experience and the police department\u2019s failure to appropriately handle her case.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCommunities were eager for public safety solutions that did not involve law enforcement. Safe Walks<\/em> was a great fit, especially for women of color, many of whom reported having negative interactions with the New York Police Department,\u201d Kerre said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During an Ethnic Media Services press call last week<\/a>, Kerre told reporters that in most cases victims were alone. \u201cNot only in the subway but walking from the subway or walking elsewhere in the city,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo simply having an extra person with you will make a very big difference.\u201d Kerre said if people feel unsafe, a volunteer can ride with them on the subway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, it has not solved \u201cthe massive intersection of crises\u201d that are at the root of the problem and ever-present on New York subways, says Kerre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First of those: all the hate crimes mainly targeting the Asian American and Pacific Islander community (AAPI). Second, all the mentally ill people on the street. Third, all the homeless who are in crisis due to unemployment and financial hardships, and then there is the \u201celephant in the room\u201d: a breakdown in trust between law enforcement and the community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve been flooding the New York subways with a massive police presence, increasing surveillance cameras and extracting the unhoused and unwell folks from the transit system but there\u2019s been no indication of what\u2019s being done with them. Many times they end up back within the subway system.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Collecting data on ridership, ethnicity, and gender would help define the problem but so far New York officials haven\u2019t done that like in California.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat Senate Bill 434 would do is require that California\u2019s top 10 largest public transit systems collect data from their passengers on the problem of harassment and uncomfortable behavior,\u201d says California State Senator David Min.  Min, the only Kirean American in the California Senate, is Vice Chair of the California Asian and Pacific Islander (API) Legislative Caucus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Min named the bill \u02bbPublic Transit for All: Improving Safety & Increasing Ridership\u2019 and introduced it February 13. A former law professor who specialized in banking and housing policy, Min has testified six times before Congress on these issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Safe Walks NYC founder Peter Kerre says that by simply accompanying a person who would otherwise be alone, Safe Walks has already made a big difference in keeping New York City transit riders safe.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a saying in academia that the plural of anecdote is data, and so we need hard data at this point if we want to develop solutions. What this would do is to give a voice to the millions of transit riders throughout the State of California,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once we have that data, then we can start to develop solutions, Min says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Janice Li is Board President of the Bay Area Rapid Transit System (BART). Her day job is with Chinese for Affirmative Action, a San Francisco-based organization that has led Asian American civil rights advocacy for more than 50 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Li says BART\u2019s pre-COVID riders made 430,000 trips on an average weekday and made up 70% of Bart\u2019s operating costs, about $1 billion\/yr. But during the lockdowns ridership dropped to four percent and has since rebounded to just 40% of what it was.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe will not continue to exist if we cannot find new revenue streams,\u201d Li says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

BART\u2019s average rider has changed. Two-thirds are non-white, one third are in households with incomes under $50,000, and 44% don\u2019t own cars. For the working poor of the Bay Area, BART is an essential mode of transportation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBART knows that in order to bring back riders, we must continue to prioritize safety. I am proud of the many new initiatives that we launched over the past three years, including our BART ambassador program, bathroom attendants, elevator attendants, and crisis intervention specialists,\u201d Li said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Making people feel safe means putting more BART personnel in our stations, at our platforms, and riding trains throughout our 50-station system spanning five Bay Area counties, she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

BART has two new initiatives \u2014 Not One More Girl<\/a><\/em>, which is a youth-led campaign to address gender-based harassment and violence on BART, and Let\u2019s Talk About Us<\/a><\/em>, an art campaign to bring visibility to domestic violence in AAPI communities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThese campaigns are creative and engaging ways for our riders to learn what they can do if they witness these situations happening and resources if they are victims or survivors themselves,\u201d Li said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Crime on BART trains is down to 7.45 crimes per 1 million trips. There were two homicides at the 24th<\/sup> St. Mission station last year. \u201cBoth times they were conflicts that happened in the neighborhood at the street level, where the victims ended up escaping into our underground system,\u201d Li said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She says what\u2019s needed is more community-based resources to address homelessness, drug addiction, and mental health crises.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Source: Published without changes from Ethic Media Services<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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