making metro
safer
Written by Wesley, Toby, and Anton
We have since gone to Union Station and 7th and Metro to learn about peoples’ experiences on the Metro. We also interviewed people at our school. We learned so much from these interviews.
The next step in our progress was to brainstorm a more realistic solution. We came to the idea of pepper spray. Pepper spray was a perfect, non-lethal, solution that will make people feel safer while riding public transit (more specifically, trains). We found that buying pepper spray was too expensive and ineffective. So we wanted to make it. Also, if we made it then we could distribute it how we wanted. We made the pepper spray this weekend and hope to hand it out at a local station soon. I feel like we are back on track after a couple of failed solution ideas in the past couple weeks. This week we interviewed a few more people and we also put recipe stickers on the bottles of pepper spray. We learned so much from the interviews. We also called the Santa Monica Police Dept. and learned how we can legally give out pepper spray or a pepper spray recipe. We plan to give out pepper spray and a recipe in bottles to our family. We also are awaiting if we can give pepper spray bottles to faculty at our school. Regardless, we plan on giving empty bottles and recipe cards to people riding the Metro. This way they can feel safer, and we can help accomplish our goal.
We decided to make pamphlets and other tangible things that say things to do in case of emergency for women of color and transgender women. We are going to interview some women of color and transgender women who have been harassed and ask then information that they wish they knew before hand. We are going to go to a train station and ask women around our school For tips and information that they wish they had known. we will ask them questions like the following: “Are you ashamed of being harassed, if so why? How old were you when you were harassed, and how were you harassed, what do you wish you had known before you were harassed?” Once we find out the information/answers we are going to make a pamphlet and put all the information on them so that other women know that to do if they are ever harassed.
We decided to make pamphlets and other tangible things that say things to do in case of emergency for women of color and transgender women. We are going to interview some women of color and transgender women who have been harassed and ask then information that they wish they knew before hand. We are going to go to a train station and ask women around our school For tips and information that they wish they had known. we will ask them questions like the following: “Are you ashamed of being harassed, if so why? How old were you when you were harassed, and how were you harassed, what do you wish you had known before you were harassed?” Once we find out the information/answers we are going to make a pamphlet and put all the information on them so that other women know that to do if they are ever harassed.
We started by researching the current security that Metro has. We found nearly 19% of people who took a survey had experienced some form of harassment on the Metro. We want to minimize this by creating a Harassment Hotline for Metro riders. The Chicago Transit system has a Harassment Hotline and it has worked in the past. If that idea is brought to Los Angeles we hope that it will have the same effect.
When on a train a rider can press a red button to contact the operator. The operator will then come on the intercom. We believe we can add more safety than just this by adding a hotline directly for harassment. |
AuthorOur names are Toby, Wesley, and Anton and we are 7th graders at Windward School in Los Angeles. We are doing a science project to help solve some local issues. We decided to tackle the problem of Metro safety. |