People not paying for BART and Muni buses is a big issue in the Bay Area. It goes back to the broken glass theory used in New York. How long do you allow this type of thing to go on when it brings so many other problems with it?
How bad is BART fare evasion? We saw 90 people in 92 minutes slip through the gates
Why don't station agents intervene? It's not their job, BART spokesperson Alicia Trost told SFGATE.
"In the past, we've had incidents where station agents do intervene and they're assaulted by fare evaders," Trost said.
Station agents' job is essentially to provide customer service: help with ticket issues, monitor any escalator or elevator issues and evacuate the station in case of emergency. They're not meant to go after gate jumpers — for their safety and for the safety of riders.
"Station agents are not police officers. They are not tasked with enforcing ordinances and penal codes. That's the job of BART police officers," Trost said.
Keep in mind the fact we were watching the fare gates at just one of BART's 48 stations, for only a small portion of one afternoon. An estimated 22,000 people ride BART without paying every day.
It's easy to see how station agents may feel helpless to fight fare cheats, a problem that's thought to cost BART up to $25 million every year.
Past attempts to crack down fare evaders haven't gone so well. In 2016 the transit agency bolted shut many of the swinging doors at San Francisco stations often use to skip fares, but it was deemed a fire code violation and they were ordered to reopen.
Earlier this year the agency hired six community service officers to act as fare inspectors — to the tune of $740,000 — to issue tickets to cheating riders. They cited 1,300 offenders in two months, but only about 100 of them paid up, so the effort ended up costing more than it recouped.
The latest plan to stop the bleeding of funds is to replace 600 fare gates with ones that are harder to jump over or slip through — though the upgrade won't come cheap, either. The agency is projecting a cost of $150 to $200 million and there's no timeline for the overhaul yet. Trost says BART is conducting a study and will deliver the results to the board next spring. It'll be up to them how to proceed.
In the meantime, BART is taking a station-by-station approach to combating fare evasion in other ways. Trost says it is adding alarms to some emergency exit gates and relocating others to more visible areas so they can't be used with the same impunity. As budget allows, the transit agency is also trying to add features that make it harder to use elevators to dodge payment, like fencing that forces riders to enter the paid area to use an elevator.
But of course, even these smaller projects come at a cost.
"Every single thing we're talking about costs money. So it can't be done overnight."
https://www.sfgate.com/local/article...n-13186006.php
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