More than half of women in a OC Transpo survey say they feel unsafe waiting at bus stops at night, while 43 per cent feel unsafe riding the bus late at night.
Women feel unsafe using the bus late at night, according to data released in the 2013 OC Transpo Customer Survey and women’s groups say the company is not doing enough to help.
OC Transpo general manager John Manconi gave a presentation on the survey to the transit commission on last week, during which he outlined important highlights from the survey.
According to the survey, 51 per cent of women feel unsafe waiting for a bus late at night, while 43 per cent feel unsafe riding the bus late at night. The numbers drop to 29 and 22 per cent respectively for men.
Manconi says the numbers show the work that needed to be done.“It’s a figure that now we have to take action on, and we will, and we already have,” he says.
The survey also showed that women feel safe when there are security personnel or other employees nearby, while men prefer the presence of security features such as cameras, emergency call buttons and phones.
Manconi says OC Transpo will consider using existing resources and people at stations, including giving non-security personnel uniforms that would help customers recognize them as employees.
“The survey results indicate that presence is important to (women). Ideas that we’ve talked about is our maintenance staff out there in the evenings. Give them high visibility uniforms,” he says.
But women’s groups say that shifting resources is not enough. Julie Lalonde, director of Hollaback Ottawa, a organization dedicated to ending street harassment towards women, says talks with OC Transpo have been difficult in the past.
“We approached OC Transpo a year ago to have a proactive conversation about this and we’ve now reached the point where the issue is urgent,” Lalonde says.
The meetings were not always productive, she says, though that’s improved since their most recent meeting.“We finally reached a point where they’re much more receptive, but it took far longer than it should have,” she says.
Some groups are arguing that giving new uniforms to existing personnel is not enough and that OC Transpo should invest in more security personnel.
Yamikani Msosa, the public education co-ordinator for the Sexual Assault Support Centre of Ottawa, says when she hears about the plan to use existing resources, she feels as if the issue is not being taken seriously enough.
“The way I interpret it is ‘Well, we’re not going to put any more resources into this, and we’re not going to take this as seriously,’ ” Msosa says.
Manconi says that using existing resources can be an effective measure and having to balance security needs with budget needs makes it the best option.
“You can never have enough. The issue is what’s the right balance,” says Manconi.
“We can make existing staff more visible, it’s an affordable thing to do. It doesn’t always have to be about adding new resources.”