Mapping Miedo and Mobility in Mexico City: A GIS Analysis of Women’s Fear and Sexual Assault in Public Transit

When street and transportation planners began to design Mexico City’s metro design, they did not incorporate women’s safety within the blueprint. Since 1969, around fifty years since the implementation of the Mexico City metro, women have been suffering the consequences of these planners’ actions. Because of this, my project ultimately aims to explore what parts of Mexico City’s public spaces are most dangerous for women and what physical urban infrastructure may contribute to this phenomenon. This thesis uses quantitative and qualitative techniques to visually understand a multitude of factors: (1) what regions of Mexico City have the highest cases of sexual assault? (2) what urban design factors makes a public space/metro station more susceptible to sexual assault? (3) why does this problem consistently occur in these spaces? and (4) how might these public spaces enable male predators? The quantitative portion of my research in this piece utilizes a geospatial analysis (using QGIS) of the instances of sexual assault around Mexico City public transportation routes and stations. For the qualitative aspect of my research, I located the top five metro stations with the highest densities of cases of sexual assault from my maps, and then analyzed their urban design for visual patterns of infrastructure that may be conducive to sexual assault with Google Streetview. The larger objective is to create a safer environment within public transportation for women and young girls in Mexico City.