BART and Alliance for Girls release a first-of-its-kind youth-informed framework to improve safety

Press

Dec 17

New report outlines a pathway for BART to increase ridership by centering youth safety

BART, in coordination with the Alliance for Girls, is doubling down on its commitment to empower girls and gender-expansive youth to play a role in helping BART enhance safety, increase ridership, and prevent and address sexual harassment and gender-based violence. A newly released report centers the ideas of local girls and gender-expansive youth by outlining steps BART can take to advance gender equity, create a welcoming environment, and measure the effectiveness of strategies.

Alliance for Girls prepared BART’s first-ever “Youth-Informed Radical Vision of Safety Evaluation Framework” report to document research and outreach conducted for BART in early 2024. Nearly 100 participants, primarily girls and gender-expansive youth who identify as people of color, provided ideas for preventative and interventional safety on BART, focusing on themes of physical and environmental safety, emotional and mental safety, and the safety of others.

The report, along with new data about harassment, were presented to the BART Board of Directors at its December 5th board meeting (watch the presentation in the video above) The BART Board thanked the Alliance for Girls for their partnership and helping BART set a pathway forward with this work. Several members of the public spoke in support of the recommendations laid out in the report.

“Safety, as defined by girls and gender-expansive youth of color, goes beyond the absence of violence," said Chantal Hildebrand, Co-Executive Director of Alliance for Girls. "It encompasses a sense of belonging, respect, representation, and sovereignty. To create truly safe public transit, these values must guide the conversation. We are excited to collaborate with BART to amplify and center their voices as we reimagine public transportation.”

Ideas from girls and gender-expansive youth to reimagine safety

During three Community Learning Exchanges and one Meaning Making Session, youth shared their experiences riding BART, and using visualization exercises, offered specific ideas regarding what they need to feel safe on transit. The report documents these ideas and encourages BART to explore the implementation of each one.

The participants outlined various ways to make stations and trains more attractive, inviting, and family friendly. Their asks included technology upgrades, more language options, greater accessibility, increased promotion of discounts, more community events at stations, and greater investments in non-police alternative interventions.

“Working directly with our most vulnerable riders, specifically girls and gender-expansive youth, BART is taking essential steps toward building a new vision for what it means to safely move around and be part of a community that looks out for each other,” said Alicia Trost, BART’s Chief Communications Officer who led the project for BART and attended all sessions with the youth.

Measuring impact through a potential gender audit

The report presents more than five dozen specific indicators that could make up a gender and safety audit to measure BART’s progress in working towards implementing a fabric of safety that supports the specific needs of girls and gender-expansive youth when riding BART. These include physical and environmental needs such as lighting, cleanliness, and art; personal needs such as access to information and familiarity of stations; and community needs such as fare affordability and activated, multi-use spaces.

Advancing the Not One More Girl initiative

BART partnered with Alliance for Girls on this research and outreach process to develop a pathway to root the groundbreaking work of the Not One More Girl initiative to uplift the voices and needs of girls and gender-expansive youth of color and find non-policing solutions to prevent and address sexual harassment and gender-based violence on BART. The work, which has been in partnership with community organizations including Alliance for Girls, the Betti Ono Foundation, The Unity Council, and Black Girls Brilliance, aims to create a culture of care among BART riders and teach safe bystander intervention tips. The effort has led to BART policy changes and system changes based on the feedback from girls and gender-expansive youth.

The Youth-Informed Radical Vision of Safety Evaluation Framework report outlines a recommended approach for BART to continually evaluate if this work is enhancing safety, deepening community engagement, and increasing ridership. The process calls for leveraging data from the recently conducted Mineta Transportation Institute’s Street Harassment on Transit survey; creating instrumentation tools; partnering with community-based organizations to gather further insights from girls and gender-expansive youth; and collaborating on findings to inform a continuous improvement cycle.

Read the full report here. The street harassment survey and the publishing of the report meet the requirements of SB 434, by Senator David Min and signed into law in 2023, requiring the state’s ten largest transit agencies, including BART, to collect comprehensive survey data identifying the leading causes of street harassment on transit and to conduct outreach and gather qualitative data with those who are underrepresented in surveys.