The NYPD Spent $150 Million to Catch Farebeaters Who Cost the MTA $104,000

I love the ticket systems in places like Berlin, Helsinki, Heidelberg, and Tampere. They don't use turnstiles at all, just occasional onboard ticket checkers.

It's so much faster for large groups of people to move through the stations so it keeps people moving instead of piling up at a ticket machine, even ones as fast as those in London.

You don't need officers standing guard at turnstiles, just extra onboard sweeps to keep most people honest.

Even better is a whole free system like some cities are going to. LA is having a freeway widening project happening. If the money for that went to their public transit system, they could make it fare free for 20 years at the same price point as "just one more lane, bro" of freeway that will still be a parking lot anyway.

Mass transit should be free if they have ads on it

I know this is a Captain Obvious moment but I'll bite anyway, just imagine how great it would be if we just socialized public transit and our tax dollars worked for us, instead of trying to incarcerate us.

Something isn't adding up here:

Fare evasion cost the MTA $690 million last year, according to a new agency study that recommends upping enforcement

nydailynews

Just casual news reading has shown different numbers here.

Edit: oh I get it hellgatenyc is looking for s story and saying that the people they caught only amounted to 104k in fares at like 3 bucks a fare or something around that that's a lot of people. I'm not a fan of the NYPD but no way they didn't deter way more than that by their presence. Whether or not you think policing fares is right this is bullshit sensationalism. Think for yourself.

Citations Needed did an episode about this. "Fare evasion" crackdown is a bullshit excuse to beef up cops and redirect public attention

That's nothing. Trump never paid taxes for a decade on millions of dollars of income and property. No one bothered to catch him until it was convenient to not get a psycho president again.

It's not about the fares, it's about the control.

If I spent $150m in my private sector job and did not at least net in the positive, I'd be out right shit canned and black listed from the company, along with everyone who approved such a waste.

It's not about money, it's about sending a message. And also, being a clown.

Man they take that shit seriously. Roughly twenty years ago, I was headed for a train, which I paid for. I think the mechanics were that I bought a paper ticket that had a magnetic stripe on it, then put that into the turnstile to enter.

The turnstile ate the ticket, didn't let me go through, and didn't come back out.

So I hopped it.

No fewer than four NYPD were right up on me and they were not happy about the situation at all. They surrounded me I guess so I couldn't run?

I explained, and the only reason I got out of it was that some other people had seen me pay and attempt to put the ticket in and told the cops the same story I'd told them. This combined with my out of state license demonstrating that the whole thing was indeed new to me got them to let me go, but not without a very stern warning.

I really thought I was going down that night.

Is farebeater what we’re calling it now?

Tbf I can do that without leaving my house.

They were so psyched they could, they never stopped to think about if they should?

imagine how much better the public transit in NY would have been with that 150 million.

And this is why Seattle mostly ignores people who skip out on fares.

Yeah, police are a service, not a cost of goods sold. It's supposed to cost money, it's not supposed to pay for itself.

What I'm hearing is if the fare was free they'd have saved at least $104,000 not including the salary of public servants that would be saved instead of spent on the same fare.

If you own a house but can barely afford it, this is how you become homeless. Ofcourse, a new body would come into the story to purchase your home from the bank after it reposese it.