Fare evasion or “hopping” is a major issue in New York City. Throughout 200+ MTA subway stations, students, adults, and other New Yorkers jump over the turnstile to avoid paying their fare.
The MTA has tried to prevent fare evasion many times, including by installing spikes and paddles on the turnstiles so passengers can’t hop over them and by replacing turnstiles with modern gates at the busiest stations.
Saul Guzman, senior, said, “I think they’re a waste of money, a waste of time. I think they don’t work as efficiently as the old gates, and I also think that it’ll require a lot of maintenance to uphold them in the long run.”
Ever since the MTA installed these, fare evasion has decreased by 60%, meaning the spikes and paddles are extremely effective. The MTA plans to install these structures at every single station in the subway system that has turnstiles.
However, despite the massive decrease in fare evasion, 10-11% of subway riders still find ways not to pay their fare. The MTA is trying to prevent this by installing new modern fare gates, with hopes to heavily reduce fare evasion in NYC.
These fare gates prevent subway riders from going under or over them to evade their fare. The MTA has installed these fare gates at five stations in recent weeks, including the Broadway-Lafayette Street/Bleecker Street station for the B, D, F, M, and 6 trains. The new gates have also been installed at the Sutphin Blvd-Archer Ave-JFK station for the E, J, and Z trains.
The MTA hopes to install these fare gates at 150 subway stations by 2029, with plans to spend $1.1 billion.
While many people have started paying their fares because of the modern gates, some still find ways to avoid paying. Some of these people have come together to form a new series, the ‘Fare Evasion Olympics’.
“I think it just shows how much of a joke these new things are,” Guzman said. “I mean, they don’t work. It’s getting to the point where there’s Fare Evasion Olympics, which is just taking the millions and millions of tax dollars that they spend on this device in order to stop fare evasion, and then it doesn’t even work.”
The Fare Evasion Olympics occurred in January of this year, and you can find it on many social media platforms, such as the New Yorkers channel on Instagram and even PIX11 on YouTube.
