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Farebeating on Staten Island local buses |
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Posted by Gold_12TH on Mon May 14 11:34:29 2012 Brazen bus riders don't pay their way on Staten IslandThere's nothing like a free ride. That's what nearly one in every five bus riders believes as they breeze by the fare box, ignore the driver's request for payment and take a seat on a number of Staten Island routes. An informal Advance survey of 270 bus riders revealed that 50 of those riders -- or 18.5 percent -- were fare-beaters, a practice that costs the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which operates the buses, $328 million in lost revenue each year. Drivers say it's unsafe to confront fare-beaters while operating a bus. And they say 18.5 percent may be a conservative finding. "It happens all the time," said a 10-year driver who did not want to be identified for this story. "For every trip, I would say about a third to a half or more don't pay." For the survey, an Advance reporter boarded the S44, S79, S53, S54, S61 and the S78 buses between the hours of 11 a.m. and 5:45 p.m. over three weekdays, April 30, May 1 and May 2. Total observation time on the buses was about six hours. During those six hours, 270 passengers boarded the buses, and of those riders, 220 paid the $2.25 fare while 50 did not. On the MTA website, the official number of bus riders, citywide, in 2011 was 665,314,040. But that includes only paying customers, the MTA confirmed. The MTA declined to provide its official estimates for non-paying bus riders, Islandwide or citywide. But applying the Advance's estimate of at least 18 percent of bus passengers being fare beaters, the total ridership on MTA buses system-wide would be more than 811 million. Drivers interviewed said that express bus riders are more reliable when it comes to paying the fare than passengers along local bus routes. RIDING THE 'FREE 44' A local route with one of the highest fare-beating rates, drivers say, is the S44, which runs between the St. George Ferry Terminal and the Staten Island Mall in New Springville. Drivers and passengers have dubbed the line "The Free 44." On the afternoon of May 1, along the S44 line, a reporter observed seven passengers out of 44 -- or about 16 percent -- who did not pay the fare. Some areas of the North Shore have a higher instance of fare-beaters, noted bus drivers interviewed during the survey. But the Advance found a fair share of cheats on routes going to and from the mid-Island and South Shore areas. In fact, on April 30, the S54 from Castleton Avenue and Broadway in West Brighton to Hylan Boulevard and Richmond Avenue in Eltingville had the highest instance -- more than 50 percent -- of fare cheats during the survey, with 20 out of 39 not paying. A reporter observed several fare-beating techniques. Many passengers simply disregard the fare box by walking right past it. Others take a more surreptitious approach by swiping a spent MetroCard to avoid detection. "People will put in a dead MetroCard and think that they are fooling you," said one driver. "But that locks up the fare box, and we just hit a button and the box starts working again." The Advance also observed passengers depositing a quarter or a dime as a partial fare before taking their seats. "The official MTA instruction is to tell the person 'the fare is $2.25,' and that's it. After that, it's not on us," said the driver. "No one at the MTA really cares. There's nothing done to compel people to pay." The MTA confirmed that its official policy is to simply notify passengers that "the fare is $2.25" when they see someone not paying, and the agency also said that lost fare revenue was not responsible for service reductions. LOOKING FOR FARE-BEATERS In Manhattan and the Bronx, a group of uniformed fare inspectors called the New York City Transit Eagle Team has been patrolling three select bus service routes since 2008 -- two in Manhattan and one in the Bronx -- issuing $100 summonses to every fare-beater they catch. The inspectors have netted 36,700 non-paying riders in the last four years, with 18,918 summonses handed out just last year, proving fare-beating is not just a Staten Island problem. But if more than 100 million passengers citywide are beating the fare box each year, the team's efforts are a drop in the bucket. "On the bus, they know nothing's going to happen, so why pay?" the driver asked, rhetorically. The NYPD is charged with picking up the slack in issuing summonses to fare cheats for the rest of the system. Last year, the NYPD issued 743 summonses citywide for fare evasion, and that includes four summonses issued on Staten Island. But the police could not break out the method of transportation, so the numbers include buses and trains. Some paying customers get miffed and feel cheated when they watch others stroll on the bus and ignore the driver when he tells them that there is actually a fare to be paid. "Yes, they (paying customers) complain," the bus driver said, adding that fare-beating has increased in recent years. "All of these people get on for free and then the MTA raises the fare." "I see somebody on the bus, and yeah, he can pay. But it's 10 cents," said paying customer Mona Attallo of Stapleton. "It's not fair, you know. That's it." FRUSTRATED PASSENGERS Some drivers will refuse to move the bus if passengers don't pay, which in turn aggravates other passengers, said Alex Moore, 16, of Concord. "Sometimes the bus driver will tell them to get off," Moore said. "They stop the bus and tell them to get off the bus. But it's also not moving. It gets people upset because some people have to go to work or get home to their kids or something like that." Manhattan doorman George Warnock of St. George pays $105 each month to ride the bus. "Most of the young kids beat the fares because they don't have money to go to school and back so they just get on the bus. They beat the fares that way, and a lot of homeless people beat the fares," Warnock said. "And people with low-paying jobs sometimes beat the fares because minimum wage doesn't pay the fares." He has seen some of the more physically strong drivers stop the bus and kick fare cheats off. But many of them just don't want a confrontation because of recent assaults on drivers. "The bus drivers can't do anything about it because they don't want to be involved. They don't want the trouble," Warnock said. "I think we need bodyguards or police. If they keep raising the fare, I guess it would be necessary." "I feel like I'm paying my share, and a lot of people are not, so I feel that everyone should pull their weight and support our transit system," Warnock added. The problem of assaults on public transit employees has become more noticeable in recent years, and now a recording plays on many buses reminding passengers that it is a felony to assault the driver. Last December, one such assault occurred between a passenger and a driver at the St. George Ferry Terminal, where the passenger repeatedly punched the driver during an argument, according to reports in the Advance. A conference Thursday in Brooklyn attended by MTA and local unions, legislators and law enforcement officials addressed the fare-beating situation. ---http://www.silive.com/news/index.ssf/2012/05/brazen_bus_riders_dont_pay_the.html |
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