CHICAGO — Fresh off its summer ad campaign to stop bad behavior by riders, the CTA said Friday that it is now putting its focus on more serious problem behaviors.
Where existing advertisements identify not-cool behaviors like littering and loudly talking on the phone, the new campaign will take on harrassment and ways to put a stop to it.
Under the running tagline "If It's Unwanted, It's Harassment," new posters will direct people to a new webpage on the CTA's website that "will provide information on the simple steps on who to call, how to report incidents and what constitutes harassment," the press release said.
Posters will include such warmly encouraging phrases as "Speak up," "It's not OK," "It's not nothing" and "We are all Watching." On top of urging passengers to report harassment, the campaign will aim to "put would-be offenders on notice," according to the press release.
The CTA is also "developing an anti-harassment training program" for its employees, officials said, and will "require anti-harassment policy language" in all its future contracts and subcontracts.
"By creating more awareness that harassment is not acceptable on CTA trains and buses, our goal is to empower customers to report incidents and to remind everyone that we do not condone harassing behavior anywhere on our transit system," CTA Board Chairman Terry Peterson said in a statement.
CTA spokeswoman Catherine Hosinski said while the agency first did a campaign against harrassment in 2009, it worked in collaboration with several groups on this campaign, including the YWCA, the Chicago Department of Health and Alternatives, an Uptown youth agency.
In July, girls involved with a program through Alternatives shared their stories of harassment on public transit during a presentation at a CTA board meeting by the Courage Campaign, which was formed by Uptown resident Kara Crutcher with the specific goal of creating an ad campaign on the CTA against the behavior.
More information is at www.transitchicago.com/speak up.
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