As nearly half of NYC bus riders don’t pay, MTA deploys inspectors to combat fare evasion
Photo by Marc A. Hermann/ MTA on Flickr
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is ramping up its efforts to stop fare evasion in the bus system following a report that nearly half of all riders are not paying. The MTA on Monday revealed that new unarmed fare inspectors will be deployed on local buses throughout the city to enforce fare payment, with fare evaders being asked to leave the bus and potentially facing a summons or arrest. The city bus system has the worst fare evasion problem of any major city in the world, costing the transit agency more than $300 million every year.
New York City’s fare evasion problem has intensified since the pandemic. In 2022, the MTA lost $315 million in revenue from bus fare evasion and $285 million as a result of subway fare evasion, according to a 2023 MTA report.
The rate of fare evasion was at roughly 18 percent in 2018, according to the New York Times.
Under the initiative, inspectors will monitor passengers who skip the fare and escort them off at bus stops staffed by NYPD officers. These officers may issue a summons ranging from $50 to $100, or in certain cases, arrest them, as reported by Gothamist.
NYPD officers will join the fare inspectors, who are part of the MTA’s “EAGLE” fare enforcement unit, on bus routes identified as particularly prone to fare evasion.
This effort builds on a similar crackdown last year, which saw EAGLE members on local bus routes and NYPD officers stationed at 20 stops across the city. Despite these measures, bus fare evasion grew from about 35 percent in 2023 to 47 percent earlier this year.
The Transport Workers Union Local 11 said MTA bus drivers are not encouraged to enforce fares due to concerns over harassment, assault, or worse—a policy influenced partly by the fatal stabbing of a bus driver in 2008 who told a passenger to pay the fare. In April 2023, a bus driver was grazed by a bullet fired by a man who was removed from the bus after refusing to pay the fare, according to Gothamist.
Stopping fare evasion is crucial for the MTA, which is still struggling to secure funding for numerous transit projects that were originally set to be funded by congestion pricing before Gov. Kathy Hochul paused the program.
The new crackdown will continue until the MTA sees evidence that more riders are paying the fare. The NYPD will reassign officers to staff the new initiative, an NYPD spokesperson told Gothamist.
During his tenure, Mayor Eric Adams has spearheaded a system-wide crackdown on fare evasion, focusing primarily on the subway system, despite the majority occurring on buses. According to Gothamist, fare evasion arrests in the subways increased by approximately 250 percent between 2022 and 2023, while police issued 160 percent more evasion tickets.
RELATED:
