Metro Says Riders Aren't Paying for 13% of Weekday Trips, Eyes New Gates to Cut Fare Evasion

[davinp]

Metro’s newest faregates — like the ones we have featured at Fort Totten — can register when a rider does not pay the fare.

Metro says it is now going to spend an additional $35 to $40 million to upgrade faregates with more "swinging door" plexiglass gates. They're taller than the gates in most Metro stations, making them difficult to jump over.

https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/loca ... n/3308201/

[daybeers]

Or maybe, spend that money on more frequent service that the region desperately needs?!?

[RandallW]

I live in the DC area and hear many anecdotal accounts about how people won't ride the Metro even with more frequent service until it feels safe. As widely reported at the time (in the 1980s), the NY MTA transit police weren't able to control crime on the subway until they began going after fare evaders, so making the Metro something people might feel comfortable using means preventing fare evasion first. (This is an application of the "broken windows" theory of policing, but given that the DC Council has basically made fare evasion rules unenforceable by police, mechanical means are needed to prevent it.)

[daybeers]

Anecdotes≠data. I don't know why so many riders are scared of using Metro.

[RandallW]

The data from WMATA is that robberies (purse snatching) is down, but that assaults, fondling, and indecent exposure are all up over 5 years on the Metro Rail and that crime in general is a 4x increase from year to date. That's why people are reporting not feeling safe.

[drwho9437]

@daybeers

Very silly...

Ridership is less than 50% of peak historical still. They are limited by the safety board on the 7000 series cars and cannot run more trains no matter how much money you spend.

The budget for WMATA is 4,700 million dollars in the current year. The gates are a delta of less than 1%. You aren't going to radically change service for 1%. Farebox recovery historically was quite high.

If the better gates reduce fare evasion by 50% and we assume a fare of 3 dollars, then that is something like 3 million/month. The gates pay for themselves in less than 1 year in that situation and increase revenue forever.

I'd like to see them really step up enforcement against vaping/smoking and do some enforcing on eating in the system. No one used to eat let alone smoke. This stuff has to be crushed before it becomes permanent.

[STrRedWolf]

@daybeers

Very silly...

Ridership is less than 50% of peak historical still. They are limited by the safety board on the 7000 series cars and cannot run more trains no matter how much money you spend.

The budget for WMATA is 4,700 million dollars in the current year. The gates are a delta of less than 1%. You aren't going to radically change service for 1%. Farebox recovery historically was quite high.

If the better gates reduce fare evasion by 50% and we assume a fare of 3 dollars, then that is something like 3 million/month. The gates pay for themselves in less than 1 year in that situation and increase revenue forever.

I'd like to see them really step up enforcement against vaping/smoking and do some enforcing on eating in the system. No one used to eat let alone smoke. This stuff has to be crushed before it becomes permanent.

You mean $4.7 billion, right?

That said, preventing fare evasion with newer gates will free up WMATA police to patrol and enforce the no vaping/smoking/eating provisions.

[RandallW]

In most of the world 1 billion == 1 million millions, so the precision of not using "billion" removes ambiguity.

[scratchyX1]

The budget for WMATA is 4,700 million dollars in the current year. The gates are a delta of less than 1%. You aren't going to radically change service for 1%. Farebox recovery historically was quite high.

You mean $4.7 billion, right?

That said, preventing fare evasion with newer gates will free up WMATA police to patrol and enforce the no vaping/smoking/eating provisions.

Without the overkill the police showed with that girl eating what, a decade ago?

[ExCon90]

In most of the world 1 billion == 1 million millions, so the precision of not using "billion" removes ambiguity.

I believe that years ago in English a thousand million was called a milliard, with billion reserved for a million million as stated above, and somewhere along the line milliard was dropped in the U. S. (and Canada?), and (through ignorance?) billion took its place. British newspapers have regularly used "thousand million" for years.

As the late Senator Everett Dirksen of Illinois famously said, "a billion here, a billion there, pretty soon you're talking about real money."

[west point]

You would have thunk that transit agencies would have learned it is a nation wide problem. All designs of stations should make fare gate avoidance very difficult.

[ExCon90]

The cheapest and best solution remains a structured and enforced Proof of Payment system provided certain requirements are met:

. Full support from government authorities in the territory involved (without that, forget it)
. Frequent ticket inspections (probably at least once a week as experienced by passengers, and at random times and places)
. Stiff penalties for violations (probably at least double the price of a weekly pass)

It works in lots of places. In Frankfurt some years ago, which had estimated a 2% loss in total revenue with PoP, a "surprise" check at a major transfer station established that fare-jumping accounted for (wait for it...) almost exactly 2%. Compare the cost of establishing and maintaining fare gates systemwide against 2% of revenue.

[drwho9437]

Comparing across countries is a bad idea. Go on reddit and you will find that people "feel like chumps" for paying because "so many people aren't" this is a different culture than say the English who are acculturated never even to cut in line and it is a scandal when someone famous did so for the Queen's funeral.

I don't think fare recovery would work well with just checks. Harsh enforcement at the point of entry and making it harder is probably the best we can do.

The new gate design looks viable to me. A bunch of people will just walk through the emergency gate probably but it is a momentum game. Same thing with eat/drinking. I try to politely remind people that isn't allowed. Particularly if they look white collar: excuse me sir you may be new to DC and not think it important but we don't eat in the subway here. Stand right and walk left.

I also confront people who are vaping and tell them to their faces they are disrespecting everyone else in the car. Again I use some judgement on how likely I am to be murdered/attacked but if everyone just ignores it out of fear then it like weeds flourish. I pick up trash on trails I hike too, you cannot just say: its someone else's job about everything. Do what you feel comfortable with.

A passive aggressive way to deal with a fare gate jumper which I haven't done yet, if they say followed me onto the train might be to ask them what they do. You can follow up with: I knew you must be struggling if they explain they are or say: oh it sounds like you are doing great I assumed you must be struggling since you didn't pay fare. I don't know it depends on how much shame people feel. Again only do something you feel comfortable with but culture does matter as I said and DC has to strengthen ours more to be rule following.