Fare Evasion Costs the MTA Millions

By Yehudit Garmaise

Throughout the pandemic, MTA officials blamed its $48.5 billion debt on low ridership and a lack of federal resources, however new statistics show that fare evasion causes the agency significant loss.

In the first three months of 2022, the MTA reported that soaring rates of fare evasion caused the agency to lose $119 million.

While 31.5% city bus riders did not pay their fares in the first three months of 2022, in just the last three months of 2021, that number was 29.3%. 

Similarly, while 9.8% of subway riders jumped the turnstiles at the end of 2021, in the first three months of 2022, the number of subway fare-beaters had climbed to 12.5%, the MTA said.

Not only does the MTA say it has lost $62 million on subways and $57 million on buses to fare-beating, but as NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell has pointed out: allowing fare-beaters onto public transit opens to the doors to more crime.

The increase in fare-beating rates has been accompanied by an 18.3% increase in NYPD “enforcement actions,” the MTA said.

In a memo sent to transit drivers on Friday, MTA officials urged NYC transit workers to “politely state the fare” to passengers who try to evade payment.

Transit workers, however, feel resentment and fear after the MTA asked them to play a role in fare collection: 13-plus years after Brooklyn bus driver Edwin Thomas was stabbed by a passenger who did not want to pay for a transfer. 

“Edwin Thomas is still remembered quite clearly,” Transport Workers Union Local 100 Vice President J.P. Patafio told the New York Post.

“The operator’s job isn’t to collect fares,” Patafio said. “It’s to drive people safely from one point to another.”