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

[peristaltor]

Bus driver chiming in.

While "free transit" sounds good (even to me), in practice it leads to real problems. Sadly, there are people out there who will, if given the opportunity, use the bus simply as a home. They will literally move in until moved out.

Instead of being all heavy-handed with ejections, here in Seattle we had drivers simply drive the bus to a parking area and get another one rather than interfere physically. The record we have for one such "non-destinational rider" was about 9 hours.

After a driver was murdered, management realized things had degraded too badly to continue with the stated policies; but we still have not found a way to eject the non-destinational without screwing up service.

Oh, and to keep our new light rail more "welcoming," there are no turnstiles at all. Anywhere. Only recently have security been hired to eject the obvious result.

[conuly]

You don’t kick everyone off at the end of the route so the driver can pee and the bus can be cleaned?

[peristaltor]

We can try, but applying an actual boot to the kick is a no-go. If we're stuck because they won't move, we can't leave.

It's that bad.

[conuly]

Okay but… maybe I’m missing something, but it’s not like we don’t have those people on the trains and buses here, and it’s harder to jump the turnstile and take the train for free. How exorbitant do fares have to be before they really discourage camping?

[peristaltor]

Again, it's not the fares themselves (or the amount charged). It's the enforcement threat that keeps those off that would camp out. We've been there before.

When we have fare enforcers (had, but they are trying to reboot that system after the murder), we have less campers (and other forms of nonsense).

The fare is not a revenue source. It's just deters a systemic breakdown of social norms.

I'm sympathetic to those actually in dire economic straits. Been there myself. Sadly, there's a subset of that group (or who claim to be) that makes the ride impossible for everyone. Therefore, fares w/ enforcement.

[silveradept]

It sounds like the true problem is not having a place to sleep, and not having a good solution to that for people. The fare and enforcement of the fare are just means to move people who are otherwise homeless to somewhere else.

I think this is an analagous situation: There are plenty of people out there who think that the provision of a free public library is an invitation for the homeless to encamp there. But the solution to that isn't "make the library charge for entry, kick out everyone who can't pay, and have guards sweep to make sure everyone has paid their library fee." Having guards to deter bad behavior is a matter for the library and its issues, but those issues aren't a direct consequence of being free to enter the library.

I understand how it's unpleasant and unhelpful, though, to have people who are making the ride impossible for others and not having an effective way of handling them. (And a management that doesn't really want to engage with the hard question of how you handle people who are consistently behaving poorly.)

It's a tangle, for sure, and it would be a lot easier to stand on principles if you could say "well, everyone has free housing, as well."

[peristaltor]

It sounds like the true problem is not having a place to sleep…

I would agree; but it's only part of the problem. Another completely ignored part is what happens to someone who doesn't have such a place, along with a place for one's stuff, for one's hygiene, and so on.

One is ignored. And that does a real number on one's psyche.

I believe a lot of this behavior stems from the desire to be seen, and not simply dismissed. When one commandeers a place, any place, that someone is demanding the right to not be ignored.

And a management that doesn't really want to engage with the hard question of how you handle people who are consistently behaving poorly.

Oh, they want to engage. They just don't know how, not with the funds at their disposal or tools——conceptual or otherwise——at their ready. So the biggest sword of Damocles hanging over them is at all costs avoiding liability and bad press. This not only leads to policy after policy that shoves the problem on, well, folks like me; it also exacerbates the problem by encouraging even more "look at me!" behavior.

Worse, it's led to a panic of sorts. Driver and support staff firings are ten times what they were a year ago. (I see that first-hand as well, as a shop steward doing my damnedest to prevent them.)

[silveradept]

All of those additional things as well, yes. (Text is hard to indicate all the subchapters that need including about any given thing.) In a world that wants to dismiss, ignore, and walk over people it thinks are unimportant, someone gets habituated to being so loud they can't be ignored. Which usually means disrupting things in some way.

So many of these issues might have solutions or at least serious progress with a real safety net for everyone.

As for the management response, augh, the priorities are all sideways. If you're trying to avoid bad press or liability at all costs, everything gets distorted. And the blame gets shifted downward on the people who don't deserve it. As you are seeing and trying to stop.

[watervole]

We had this when free bus travel for pensioners was first introduced. (MY daughter was a bus driver). It saved elderly people their heating bills if they simply stayed on the bus all day.

I forget how they dealt with it now, but we still have free pensioner passes.