The Entire HBLRT System is Retarded

So you are recommending a Twitter network so that you and your cronies can break the law?

It seems you have some sort of aversion to paying the published fare. There is one very easy way to legally get out of paying a fare, and avoid the Fare Gestapo: Don't ride! Otherwise, just pay the damn fare like everyone else.

Time marches sideways. Did any of you whipersnappers hear stories from your grandpa about cb radioes going "10-4 good buddy, watch out for Smoky at ..."?

In addition to sticking it to the man, I think I've seen occasion of stick it to the guy who might scrounge for tickets. Some folks I've seen getting off the light rail will rip up their ticket before throwing it in the trash.
I try to throw my ticket away shortly after getting off because I'm a bit paranoid that on my return trip I'll grab my old, already stamped and used, ticket out of my pocket and stamp it and not realize my mistake until the inspector finds and fines me.
On disembarking I've been approached by folks who ask me if I still need my used ticket. Still paranoid for fear of a sting operation I try not to tell them. If they care to observe me throwing it away I think I'm in the clear if the law observes them retreiving it. On the other hand if the law sees me hand it to them I think I might be at risk for a conspiracy charge.

And this sort of stuff's been going on a long, long time. I can remember at SEPTA subway stations seeing folks hand their old fashioned passes through the bars to their buddies who were outside the prepaid area. SEPTA eventually put a magnetic strip on their passes, and the station turnstiles would impose a time restriction on reuse.
I also remember seeing people hand their pass out the bus or trolley window to their buddies on the sidewalk. Yep I'm showing my age, the vehicles in question had windows one could open, today's Philly buses and trolleys now have only the little transom window up top, well out of arm's reach of anyone on the street, so you can't have a straight hand to hand pass off.

at7000 wrote:Does anyone know about this new "Twitter technology?" I'm thinking that if we were all on the same list or network, we could alert each other when the inspectors are 'out and about' or have set up check points. Then we will know what lines or stations to avoid.

I wonder what the legalities would be of someone organizing such a user broadcast list. Notifying other passengers via text messaging(cellphone based) should pose no problems I imagine.

In other words, I wonder if we could use cutting edge technology to beat the system. For those of us who feel good about 'sticking it to the man.'

This would work as a "rider alert" for those who participate, and might be great for other things too, like train delays, service outages, crazed gunmen on the rampage, terrorist attacks on the system, etc.. It's a great early warning type system.

I believe that such a scheme would constitute a conspiracy to commit fare evasion. Plus, since in the aggregate dollar amount of the evasion would aggregate well over the limits, at a minimum the offense would constitute a 4th degree crime, and given enough participants over time, even a 3rd degree. Thus turning a minor infraction to exposing participants to a potential criminal conviction and significant time in prison.

I agree that the proposed twitter ticket inspector early warning system's illegal and immoral. The other proposed uses, terrorist and delay warnings, are far more appropriate.

at7000 wrote:Some good points were made, I'll attempt to address a few:

I understand that without the timestamp, people could use (abuse?) the system all day long. But come on, this is a "commuter rail" type system. I reckon 80-90% of the ridership are working stiffs going back and forth to the office. hardly the type of people to ride light rail all day, just for the hell of it or in the feeble attempt to view the polluted swamps and the decaying buildings of NJ. "

I understand you're trying to be poetic and NJ does have its share of polluted swamps and decaying buildings but your description of the scenery the hblr goes through is a big FAIL. The only swampy part of the line is near the morris canal basin; it may be polluted or not but within eyesight is the new jc hospital and from there on it's all upscale condos/brownstones; park slope west. there may be some decaying building along the westside line but since the line lies in a cut, you really don't see much. from exchange place to newport to hoboken all the way to the tunnel under union city, it's all new construction spurred on by the light rail. Even the public housing in hoboken have been spruced up!
I rode the line a lot during this past april, mainly from 9th st, and i can tell you that the newport stop is always crowded with young people going to/from the mall after 3pm and on weekends.
If you really want to rip on the sad state of NJ real estate then you'd be better off talking about the scenery you see while riding the riverline when it crosses into camden.

James Dean, Brando, Che Guevara, always seemed to get off on breaking rules and such, so I don't consider fare evasion an actual crime. To me, it's more like jay-walking, throwing a gum wrapper on the ground, or speeding like 5-10 miles over the speed limit whilst driving a car. More like breaking a rule than a committing a felony or something.

Are we now going to fill our prisons up with light-rail fare jumpers? We already have ten times the prisoners of any other country, including places like Iran North Korea, China, and Russia. We incarcerate like millions and millions more of our citizens. But face it man, that only creates more hardened criminals, since now your fare-jumper, comes out a thief, rapist, or murderer.

This might indeed sound audacious, I believe my tax dollars should cover all my fares for light-rail service. The role of government is to provide things like free transportation via the vast tax revenues they steal from the populace.

Anyway, there was an interesting court case, where a cop arrested a motorist for flashing his headlights at other cars, indicating to them that there was a "speed trap" around the bend. The case reached the US Supreme Court, which found the case in favor of the motorist.

Simply texting someone that there is a police checkpoint somewhere, is a hard case to call IMO. I also remember some morning radio shows, taking calls from car commuters, alerting other motorists of "speed traps"

On the subject of NJ, I'm not sure what to say really. I moved here and I think the quality of life is better than NYC. I think the place is ok, it has its problems like all states do. The taxes and such are obscene, but that is hardly unique to NJ.

As for the landscape, it seems to run the gamut from some very beautiful areas, to old decaying buildings, toxic waste dumps and superfund sites. It will still take time to transition from chemical factories and heavy manufacturing to modern, cleaner, alternative industries. High-tech and finance from example.

Functionally and aesthetically I have no problem at all with HBLRT system. The stations seem reasonably clean, well kept, and the trains seem to run frequently enough during my commute times. The cars seem well designed and it is amazingly quiet.

You guys just about have me convinced the ticket validation, is a necessary evil. I still think they could put validators right by the downstairs ticket vending machines. On the "platform based vending machines," this is already the case.

Million-dollar studies of the LRT system, revealed that the validation thing was extremely confusing for new riders.

at7000, you started this thread calling the ticket inspectors Nazis. Your last 2 posts however say that you don't think fare evasion's a crime.
I've asked already, and haven't seen a response from you, how the old fashioned collection where one has to present fare to a uniformed person before riding every time is any less of a Nazi tactic than being required to have fare all the time and randomly having to present it to an inspector sometimes.

Also you allude to million dollar studies of the LRT system that have revealed that validation confuses new riders, but don't cite any particular study. Common sense tells me that anything different can be confusing. You however are several days into a thread about this ticketing system, so you're not a new user, and I suspect that you were not confused about the validation thing even on your first trip, at least I suspect you knew there was a requirement to get tickets validated, and I suspect you probably have been trying to milk the system for what you can get out of any loophole. Again that's my opinion based on my common sense and what I've seen in your posts.

I find it hard to believe at your first ride on the Hudson Bergen Light Rail you thought that you didn't have to pay a fare and were shocked to find that there were random ticket inspectors, despite your belief that your tax dollars should cover all your fares for light rail service. By the way, I tend to share your belief, not necessarily out of a further belief that the government steals taxes from us, but rather because I feel it's in society's best interests to have public transit, public schools, healthcare and a bunch of other things. I also believe that automobiles both get a government subsidy and impose damage to society and environment which we don't always notice because it's not itemized per trip, unlike public transit which has a more quantifiable per trip cost, i. e. that fare we've been talking about.
However I also realize that there are reasons, valid or not, why it's at least inconvenient to give free trolley rides.

I'm not sure what you mean by the downstairs vending machines, I'm not sure I remember an Edgar-Bergen light rail station that had a downstairs. Are you talking about 2nd St or 9th St, one of which has elevators up the cliff to the street on top of the hill?
If you just mean that NJT doesn't always put the vending and validation machines in sensible places, I agree, at least at the larger stations, Walter Rand and Trenton, on my route, the Riverline. I think I've also read that at some Edgar-Bergen stations one is forbidden even to enter the platform without a valid ticket, yet NJT puts machines at only some of the entrances, so one is required to walk the platform length via the public sidewalk to get to the end that has a machine. If one takes the shortcut down the platform one is then subject to inspection and fine. I think that situation's a bad idea on NJT's part, I'd even say heavy handed and misguided.

at7000 wrote: Anyway, there was an interesting court case, where a cop arrested a motorist for flashing his headlights at other cars, indicating to them that there was a "speed trap" around the bend. The case reached the US Supreme Court, which found the case in favor of the motorist.

Again you're alluding to something without actually citing it for the rest of us to look it up. This is another thing I find hard to believe, for several reasons; I can't believe that any cop would have thought he could convince a prosecutor that they had any hope of proving what the motorist's intent was; because I doubt the prosecutor would have made the evil intention charge stick in regular court I doubt there would have been any guilty verdict to have gone to the US Supreme court; I don't believe that the sentence would have been harsh enough for anybody to have filed an appeal, again if you'd cite your source we could look it up, presented with that evidence I'll certainly change my belief; and there are already traffic regulations against flashing high beams for safety reasons which would have been a more likely charge to bring against the motorist, assuming the driver flashed his high beams and wasn't just turning regular headlights off and on,

at7000 wrote:I'm thinking that if we were all on the same list or network, we could alert each other when the inspectors are 'out and about' or have set up check points. Then we will know what lines or stations to avoid.

So you are trying to cheat the system. Sorry, not going to get any sympathy here.

The system is already subsidized by taxpayers and you are getting the service at less than the cost to run it.

Pay for what you use, for pete's sake.

at7000 wrote:James Dean, Brando, Che Guevara, always seemed to get off on breaking rules and such, so I don't consider fare evasion an actual crime. To me, it's more like jay-walking, throwing a gum wrapper on the ground, or speeding like 5-10 miles over the speed limit whilst driving a car. More like breaking a rule than a committing a felony or something.

Are we now going to fill our prisons up with light-rail fare jumpers? We already have ten times the prisoners of any other country, including places like Iran North Korea, China, and Russia. We incarcerate like millions and millions more of our citizens. But face it man, that only creates more hardened criminals, since now your fare-jumper, comes out a thief, rapist, or murderer.

This might indeed sound audacious, I believe my tax dollars should cover all my fares for light-rail service. The role of government is to provide things like free transportation via the vast tax revenues they steal from the populace.

Anyway, there was an interesting court case, where a cop arrested a motorist for flashing his headlights at other cars, indicating to them that there was a "speed trap" around the bend. The case reached the US Supreme Court, which found the case in favor of the motorist.

Simply texting someone that there is a police checkpoint somewhere, is a hard case to call IMO. I also remember some morning radio shows, taking calls from car commuters, alerting other motorists of "speed traps"

The difference is that under the law (for sure in NJ), speeding is not a crime. Fare evasion is a crime. For crimes, conspiracy to commit as crime is a crime. (the idea is that conspirators can be arrested and convicted before the crime occurs, rather than having to wait until is does; penalties are typically the same for either) Prison is not the only deterrent. One is a record of a criminal conviction which effectively makes one unemployable for may jobs, the other is a fine well into the thousands of dollars.

gardendance, I remember that story about a driver alerting others to an impending speed trap, and that driver being ticketed as such. The reason that I believe it reached a critical mass is the driver in question was a doctor, I believe, and he had a lot of free time and money on his hands to take this case to a higher court. This was probably over 10 years ago and I believe it was a Jersey driver, IIRC.

at7000, whether or not you agree with a law does not mean you can disregard it. You are required to pay for your fare, end of story. The POP system, as previously mentioned, was implemented so that station boardings can be quick, without a conductor or the driver collecting a ticket, and so that the stations didn't need to be built with barriers, which would be very difficult and more expensive to implement at most of the stations, and nearly impossible at Essex Street. So that's why the validation scheme was implemented.

I also find it odd that you complain about high taxes and such, but at the same time wish for free rides on the HBLRT. The money has to come from somewhere.

I'd also love to see more about this study you mention about the difficulty of using a POP system. I don't remember hearing about such a study.

Are we now going to fill our prisons up with light-rail fare jumpers?

Who said that? There is a fine you pay. You don't get thrown in the Light Rail Prison.

that only creates more hardened criminals, since now your fare-jumper, comes out a thief, rapist, or murderer

You have any data to back that up? It really doesn't make any sense. First, I'd say the purposeful fare jumper already IS a thief, so you'd just be coming out the same as you went in. You also mention other countries like Iran and North Korea, and mentioning our slice of prisoners being higher. You ever think that many of the criminals never make it to prison in those countries, since they are dealt with in other ways, you know, like death?

Really, you're just grasping at straws trying to justify your behavior. I don't think that many on a rail forum are going to have much sympathy for your desire to evade the fare.

alewifebp, it still sounds like urban legend, 'I heard it from a friend of a friend'. I would tend to believe you more if you had said he was a retired doctor. If he made $100,000 a year as a practicing doctor that means he doesn't make $100,000 a year for whatever time he has to spend away from the job appealing his conviction. The more he makes the more he looses when he's not working. If you're self employed it doesn't mean you have no boss, it means you have thousands of bosses, or more accurately if you want to get paid you hope you have thousands of bosses. And remember 'Why do you drink such a modestly priced wine if you're so rich?' 'How do you think I got so rich?' doesn't happen if he spent 100 hours at $100 per hour for his lost wage and $100 an hour for the lawyer to appeal a $5000 fine. And if it went to any supreme court, state or federal, he spent more than 100 hours on the appeal.
There's no right to shout 'fire' in a crowded theater, but there may be a right to shout 'argh', or at least no law that says shouting 'argh' is the same as 'fire'. And I doubt there's a law, Jersey or wherever, that says flashing lights means you're alerting anybody to a speed trap. Since I live in Jersey if this thread keeps going I suppose I'll have to check goo goo to see if they say this is for real or not, but I have a feeling I'll find 500 sites that say yes and 500 that say no.
And here's an interesting coincidence. I woke up about 10pm because somebody next door was shouting "Stay down or I'll shoot you". First thing I did was grab the phone to call the cops, then I noticed flashing lights. it turns out the guy shouting was a cop. Bravely or foolishly I went outside. As soon as I stepped onto the sidewalk a police officer said 'sir, get back in your home'. Now if I had seen another person approaching, and I told them 'go away' and it turned out he was an associate of the handcuffed guys next door, how likely is it that the cops would think they could convince a prosecutor that I was a conspirator, even though my phrase was much less ambiguous a warning than any flashing light? And if I had as much money as your doctor, how likely is it that I would have hired a lawyer dumb enough to have let the case go to its first trial?

You don't get thrown in the Light Rail Prison.

I've mentioned this story more than once, I'd better save it for copy and paste in the future. I heard a passenger complain to his buddy 'I got thrown in jail 30 days for no ticket'. The fare inspector 'accidentally saw my fake id', then they found outstanding warrants.
Moral of the story, please, please, memorize the info on your fake id so you're ready when the inspector asks you to recite it, don't present 2 different kinds of fake id, and don't have outstanding warrants if you're going to forget to have a valid fare.

I heard it too, but that doesn't make it true. A quick Google & Snopes search turns up nothing. Without some legitimate sources, I'd have to file that in the false category.

... a Sunday excursion on HBLRT, 9th Street/Congress Street Station to Jersey Avenue, found:

a. Lots of riders; most destined for (or boarding at) Pavonia/Newport. You remember that place, where "no one will take LRT to shop."
b. Little on-off at Harborside, on a Sunday, of course.
c. Lots of activity at aptly named Exchange Place Station;
d. Lots of building activity still ongoing at "the big lot" bracketed by Jersey Avenue and Marin Boulevard Stations; I'm sure building has slowed, but it doesn't appear to have stopped;
e. Better speeds between Essex Street Station and Exchange Place; signal priority still isn't signal pre-emption, but the operators seem to time things better now, perhaps given more experience;
f. Still admittedly slow on the elevated portions north of Pavonia/Newport;
g. Ticket vending machines and validators now on the north end of 9th Street/Congress Street Station -- a plus and a surprise to this user; and
h. A widespread familiarity with ticket validation, with a few waiting until an LRT is in sight to stamp their ticket to maximize whatever time they'll use.

We offer our usual caveat that things can always improve still more, of course. So NJ-ARP urges constructive criticism to continue, as so many folks on this thread (if we try to name you all and forget someone, we're in deep!) have done to great benefit in the past.

HBLRT is working.

I have seen the inspectors get on, announce "TICKETS" and go through car as fast as it takes to walk from one end to the other if no violations are found. What is the inconvenience to the "legal" rider, holding you ticket up for a second. The way I see it, if by their presence the more they get to pay the fare, the less likely my fare will have to go up.