48% of NYC riders do not pay the bus fare

Maybe we need to stop thinking about public transport as a revenue generating/ self funding organization and just think about it as a critical piece of making a city work.

Nobody worries about whether the fire department is “breaking even”, you just pay for it through taxes because it’s essential

Public transit fares are generally malformed. I personally never pay the LA Metro fare. Why? Because I pay the Metrolink fare, which by their own admission covers same-day Metro transit. But police will actively seek me out as a person who looks like they have money and give me a hard time for not “tapping”, all while folks who very clearly have no money waltz on into the metro, stopping only to smoke crack on the elevator up. There’s a general problem in this country of what to do with law breakers who do not have money. It seems like the answer is to make them work and garnish their wages, but for whatever reason we are against that.

The simple truth is that urban progressives no longer believe that the poor owe anything to society in general. The idea of enforcing the law against such a presumably disadvantaged group is anathema. Until there is a cultural shift where you can discuss the idea of mutually upholding the commons more and more city services will devolve into taxes on honesty.

All New Yorkers pay 80% of the cost to run the bus before they even think about boarding. (“Farebox recovery ratio”)

This is an excuse to fund more cops. Transit should be free, like sidewalks and parks.

I'm not too familiar with the buses but I use the subway and see people evading the fare daily. I pay but then I feel like a sucker.

Strange. 48% is a lot, and the difference indicates that there may be design problems.

By design problems I mean... For a while my bank's ATM gave me only large-denomination notes and the bus company's machine didn't accept those. So I'd stand there, money in hand and unable to pay.

Later, when I had my first child, a few of the tube station entrances only had ticket-stamping machines at the stairs, not at the path I had to use with my baby pram.

Do NY buses have that sort of problem?

https://archive.is/e7agL btw

Jump the turnstile / Never pay the toll

Doo-wah diddy and bust in with the pre-roll

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itStM-gwUyU

Doesn’t NYC spend significantly more on police to crack down on fare evasion than they do on skipped fares?

I wonder what percentage of that is people getting on a bus to get to a train, where they actually pay the toll.

I used to have to take a bus to a train and it was normal to have people get in through the exit doors in the back because the front of the bus was too packed to get through (people not moving to the back because they're old or want to be close to the exit to get off). Almost everyone got off on the last stop that was next to a train stop where they would go down and pay to get on the subway.

I also used to take another bus down metropolitan ave in Queens, which usually only had 5-10 people on it at a time but would be stuck in heavy traffic due to all of the people driving down the avenue from Queens to Brooklyn, and it made me wonder how much time everyone would save if we made the bus free to incentivize more of the drivers to take the bus instead.

I imagine that 90% of those who get on a bus without paying have a smartphone in their hands.

Is there really no way to charge for bus rides via smartphones, and track those who are on buses but don’t pay?

You can’t have nice things if you don’t have nice people. In Germany busses often use an honor system: https://www.german-way.com/travel-and-tourism/public-transpo....

Half of riders evading bus fare is third-world country levels of dysfunction. How does a developed country get to that point? And is it even possible to get things back on track? I imagine you could institute harsh punishments for fare evaders, but if you need to do that, you’ve already lost. You can’t beat orderliness into people.

Why would you if you can get away with not paying? When I was a NYC resident, I looked at people who evaded fares with disgust for raising the price for all of us, but it's really just a consequence of failing to enforce the law. I should have been looking with disgust at the NYPD guys who walked around the platform like tough guys but constantly failed to hand out tickets to fare evaders.

Funny no one in the comments has mentioned law and order.

I’m only familiar with the buses near me - I don’t think the bus driver would let me on board if I didn’t pay - how do these riders get away without paying? The driver will wait for people to get exact change and not move, though I have seen a driver let someone on who claimed they lost their card. I can see how people do this on a train or subway (until you get spot checked for fare) but I have to walk by the meter/card reader where I am for buses. The article is behind a paywall so I only got the first two paragraphs.

it shouldn't have a fare! taxes are the fare!

the amount of time, effort, and money spent on fare collection is absurd! taxes are more efficient

It should be free. Most roads are free.

Fare evaders are often critics of the high price, not realizing that the price could apparently be cut in half if all riders simply cooperated to pay the fare.