The sign at the bus stop reminds me that farejumping comes with a fine up to $150

[conuly]

The fare is $3. If you commute, you take the bus or train twice a day, five days a week. Every week you spend $30*. You'd have to be caught and ticketed more often than once every five weeks in order to make this math not work out in your favor. And that is never going to happen, because there aren't nearly enough enforcement agents. As it is, the ones we have cost more than they make back. It's all a racket, but you'll notice the buses still aren't free because Albany is still in control of the MTA.

* I'm making a few assumptions here, first, that you're not sharing the same card among several family members with staggered schedules; once you spend $35 in a week on the same card, subsequent trips are free. Also, this is the full fare for most buses and trains, but not for the express bus.

Comments

[silveradept]

Fare evasion seems to have been thought up mainly as an excuse for cops to be violent with minorities and to cloak it in a plausible-enough thing to make people not complain that the NYPD is racially profiling again, yeah?

Haven't we known for decades that free transit is better for a whole host of reasons, and it keeps getting stalled because racist white people don't want non-whites to move freely about and have happy lives?

[conuly]

It's also stalled because something something forcing people to stop using cars. (It's not a logical argument, I'll give you that.)

[silveradept]

Oh, is this somewhere in the neighborhood of "it's my free choice to drive and you can't take that away from me?" or similar?

[peristaltor]

Haven't we known for decades that free transit is better…

Bus driver here, speaking from experience.

No. (See thread below.)