Transit systems are targeting fare evaders to win back riders leery about crime

CHICAGO– Dominique Davenport was waiting for a ride home after getting off the MetroLink light rail one evening in East St. Louis, Illinois, when he heard an argument behind him on the station platform, followed by gunshots.

A teenager had been killed, the latest act of violence for a St. Louis-area public transit system that has a reputation for crime and allowed anyone to board without even showing a ticket.

“You might have just gotten off work and someone gets an attitude,” Davenport said. “Major drug addicts, drug dealers, you have so many different personalities, so many different types of people going through things. And everyone understands the train.”

As transport hubs throughout the country trying to win riders back who have not returned since the pandemic – 26% in September 2023 – a major obstacle is the sometimes inaccurate perception that transit crime is on the rise. Many systems are stepping up enforcement and focusing their efforts on people who try to drive without paying.

MetroLink has begun adding 8-foot metal gates to ensure customers cannot enter the platform without a valid fare card. That’s a big change from the honor system the two-state light rail had in place since its founding in 1993, where fares were enforced only through onboard checks and the threat of fines for repeat violators.

Transit systems in other metropolitan areas such as New YorkChicago, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia and San Francisco already required advance payments, but lately they have beefed up entry gates to curb the temptation for riders to simply obstruct a turnstile.

But does cracking down on ticketless riders really help eliminate this? violent crime? As Janno Lieber, chairman and CEO of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority in New York, explained, “not every fare evader is a criminal,” but virtually all criminals “dodged fare.”

The new gates being installed at St. Louis area MetroLink stations are commonly known elsewhere as “fare gates.” But Kevin Scott, general manager of safety at Bi-State Development, the agency that oversees transit in the region, quickly corrected that reference. They are “safety gates,” he says, emphasizing that the $52 million purchase, which also includes the addition of 1,200 regularly monitored cameras, is less about catching boaters than improving safety.

“We’ve seen it time and time again when something happens in the street, everyone runs to the MetroLink platform and that’s where the shooting happens or where the stabbing happens,” Scott said. “We’re really trying to influence the general perception that the system is unsafe. We could have taken five or six steps forward in terms of security, but if an incident occurs we are now three or four steps back.”

According to the Federal Transit Administration, assaults and murders on public transit roughly doubled between 2011 and 2023. Several transit agencies, including the St. Louis MetroLink, have reported a recent drop in crime.

There is less current national data on the link between crime and fare evasion. However, nearly 94% of people arrested for violent crimes in the Los Angeles metro between May 2023 and April 2024 were non-fare earners. Metro is testing higher fare gates and some stations now require customers to tap a card when going both out and in.

Joshua Schank, who wrote a report for the Mineta Transportation Institute examining whether public transportation should be free, said gateways are emblematic of the big question underlying public transportation: should it be a service for all or just for those who can afford to drive? ?

“There’s a tendency to default to thinking that enforcing rates or setting up rate gates is a security solution because it’s something concrete you can do,” says Schank, partner at InfraStrategies. “Maybe that’s the answer, but it’s worth exploring other behavioral elements to improve safety and not just following the fare gates.”

New York’s subway system has long been notorious for fare evasion. One widely viewed YouTube video shows a man squeezing through a turnstile by pulling it back slightly, and another shows five people crowding through a gate after paying for just one fare. Earlier this year, more than 1,400 turnstiles were modified to prevent them from sliding through and other modifications are being tested to make them more difficult to jump over.

Like New York, Washington DC’s Metro subway system has been working to make gates taller while also beefing up patrols for unpaid passengers. Police have issued more than 10,000 tickets for fare evasion this year, almost three times as many as in the same period last year. More than 250 people caught skipping fares were arrested on outstanding warrants and 16 weapons were recovered.

Last month, four people were shot dead while sleeping on an elevated train in Chicago. Gate improvements were already part of the Chicago Transit Authority’s plan to increase safety at L stations, along with better patrols and a pilot program to track weapons.

Bay Area Rapid Transit in San Francisco has had fare gates since it opened in 1972, but until 2018 an officer had to actually witness someone dodging a fare to write a ticket. Customers now risk fines if they do not have proof of payment or rate card with them. Additionally, each gate is fortified with security wings, which spokesman Jim Allison says are nearly impossible to push open “unless you’re an NFL linebacker and you’re going all out.”

“We started to see tariff evasion a little differently, not just as a cost of doing business, but also as a cultural burden,” says Allison. “There was a feeling that because so many people were observing fare evaders, it was eroding confidence in the system.”

Sound Transit, which operates the regional light rail system in the Seattle area, has never had fare gates and has no plans to add them after a study found the cost for the entire system could approach $200 million.

The Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority in Philadelphia estimates that it loses as much as $68 million annually due to fare evasion. Yet expensive new gates, like the glass gates SEPTA is installing, rarely pay for themselves quickly through more effective toll enforcement.

That’s why many systems, including the St. Louis MetroLink, justify their purchase less from a financial lens than through other factors such as safety and fairness.

The Jackie Joyner-Kersee Center station, near where Davenport works in East St. Louis, was one of the first to be upgraded. Until the rate card system becomes operational, employees will manually open the gate when customers present proof of payment.

“I like it,” Davenport said. “If they know you’re paying your fare and taking the train home, they’ll let you through.”