NEW YORK — New subway fare gates and revised policies regarding activation of e-tickets on commuter trains are among proposals to address fare evasion across the Metropolitan Transportation Authority system, a problem estimated to have cost the MTA some $690 million in 2022.
Those proposals come from a report included in the Final Report of the Blue-Ribbon Panel on Fare Evasion, a 16-person group convened in May 2022 to study the issue. The panel’s goal is to cut dollar losses in half while increasing paid ridership within three years.
“Fare evasion is a crisis that threatens the future of the MTA, and to solve it the panel believes a rigorous, comprehensive approach to tackle root causes is needed,” the panel’s co-chairs, Rosemonde Pierre-Louis and Roger Madlonado, said in a press release. “By bringing New Yorkers together and centering education, equity, and changes to the physical entry experience along with a reimagined enforcement strategy, we can alleviate evasion and turn the tide.”
MTA CEO Janno Lieber said the report’s findings “address this emerging crisis with a comprehensive plan across all MTA services, while also acknowledging that enforcement alone will not solve this problem.”
Estimates are that up to 400,000 riders each day, up to 15% of the total, use the subway system without paying, adding up to some $285 million in lost revenue in 2022. More than half enter through emergency gates, which are opened often for those with accessibility issues or objects (such as baby strollers) that will not fit through the existing narrow turnstiles. The panel proposes replacing these with modern gates, while in the short term exploring other solutions to make existing turnstiles and gates more evasion proof.
On the commuter rail system, the panel estimated that the Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North lost an estimated $44 million in fares not collected or incorrectly corrected in 2022, with 6% of riders not paying at all. Potential remedies include strategies to encourage or require pre-boarding activitation of e-tickets, a revised penalty system for non-payment, and exploring the possibility of fare gates at appropriate stations.
The full report, which also addresses an estimated $310 million in uncollected bus fares and $46 million in bridge and tunnel toll evasion, is available here.
Welcome to the big city.
Root cause of fare evasion? The collapse of the rule of law? Which leads to bigger crimes and criminal activity ……..
I guess they are afraid to say that most of those fare evaders are also the source of most of the problems?
Two thirds of a billion dollars in criminally lost revenue? That could have bought a lot of good things for MTA.
Root cause of fare evasion? Actually, the root cuse of fare evasion is fare evaders.