Women often feel unsafe - particularly after dark - just walking around the streets or waiting to catch public transport.
An interactive map that pinpoints the streets, parks and public areas across NSW where women feel most at risk has found a disproportionately high level of residential areas are perceived as dangerous.
The digital crowd-mapping project, launched late last year, relies on anonymous contributions from women and gender-diverse people to identify places where they have felt unsafe.
The locations are then pinned on a map and contributors are asked to complete a short survey.
Thousands of crowd-sourced entries have been logged across metropolitan Sydney and regional NSW for the YourGround NSW project.
Project leader Nicole Kalms said the research for the first time captured where, when and why women and gender-diverse people felt at risk.
"There's very little information out there about the very particular ways women negotiate public space," she said.Â
"Women manage things like sexual harassment and their ability to safely move through public spaces in their own way."
Many contributors refer to feeling unsafe on poorly lit streets and at certain public-transport hubs.
Of those locations marked "unsafe", the highest proportion were placed on residential streets.
"Walking across this bridge to a friend's house in the evening is scary," one entry from Lismore in the Northern Rivers reads.
"I feel trapped when I'm on the bridge and it is really isolated.
"It feels really creepy."
Half of all unsafe pins were marked as being "after dark", while just nine per cent of safe pins were recorded for this time of day.
About 44 per cent of safe pins were for sites that felt secure at any time, suggesting those spots could be used for insights into how safety in public space might be enhanced.
The project is funded by the NSW government’s $30 million Safer Cities Program and developed in partnership with the NSW Women’s Safety Commissioner Hannah Tonkin, the Department of Communities and Justice and Transport for NSW.
It follows earlier findings from a 2023 transport department survey that found 59 per cent of women felt unsafe most or all of the time in public spaces after dark, compared with 32 per cent of men.
Women's Minister Jodie Harrison said women and gender-diverse people tended to feel less safe in public.
"That perception can often impact their movements and opportunities to participate in the community," she said.
"(It) may cause them to change their behaviour, such as avoiding using public transport or certain spaces altogether."
Submissions for the project will be taken until February 8.
