Originally published at: Wave of the hand defeats new $700k subway gates meant to deter fare evaders - Boing Boing
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He’s just full of tricks.
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Test before deploy kids.
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Maybe that money could be put to better use than working to prevent people from using public transportation. 
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includes a search for new fare gate technology, police officers, private guards, transit enforcement teams, discount fare programs and soon, a customer-messaging campaign."
and my bet would be they have to raise fares to cover all that 
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Nope, that’s what congestion pricing is for.
Edit: congesting → congestion
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I’ve been thinking about the trend for cities (and even countries) to offer completely free-at-point-of-use public transport. Seems like, in a good year, not much more than half of NYC transit operating costs are covered by fares, in some parts of the transit system, up to 1 in 3 riders are evading fares (with the subway supposedly losing out on almost $700 million due to evasion), and many hundreds of millions are spent to stop fare evasion (the NY police alone spending $150 million on the effort). It makes me wonder at what point it’s economically better off for the city to just have free public transit (or if there’s a point where the increase in ridership would unsustainably stress the system for a high-use area like New York). My gut instinct - which might be way off - is for that a densely populated area like NYC, transit-per-mile and per-person would be cheaper than in most/all of the cities currently offering free transport.
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There was a point in Gavin Newsom’s tenure as mayor of San Francisco when he noted that the city was spending roughly as much on fare enforcement for the Muni system as it was bringing in for ridership fees, and hinted maybe they should just make it free instead.
I think he walked that idea back almost immediately when a bunch of Muni employees expressed displeasure at the idea of mass layoffs.
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I visited Lisbon and Porto a little while back. The metro systems had pillars on the train platforms where you could tap in with your fare card, but there was nothing to impede fare-jumpers at all.
Kinda makes me wonder if enforcing payment doesn’t pay for itself.
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MTA communications director Tim Minton states that the city has a “multi-layered approach to deterring fare evasion driven by a blue-ribbon panel’s report”
Have they thought of maybe paying for public transport from taxation?
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Given the upkeep needs of BART that aren’t currently being met, I have a hard time believing that any layoffs would be necessary. The only big shift would be converting transit cops to cleaners, which would be a more honorable profession.
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We Americans really do have a problem with just copying what already works elsewhere.
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At 12 seconds in, you can see 6 of said police officers standing around, chatting, completely ignoring the really hard to miss guy in the bright hoodie.
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BART is a different system from Muni (BART is a regional system, Muni is actually controlled by the city itself) and “fare inspector” isn’t a skill set that necessarily translates into system maintenance.
I would still support making Muni free to ride but I don’t doubt the change would ruffle some feathers among many people who benefit from the status quo.
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TIL! Thanks!
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American cities are going the other direction. Central Portland had “Fareless Square” starting in 1975 but ended it in 2012. I’m glad that I got to try out their convenient streetcars when I visited the city in 2010.
Fareless Square - Wikipedia.
Many people who fight against free public transit claim that it attracts too many “dangerous” (read: poor or homeless) people.
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