In some parts of the city, the back door of the buses may as well have a "ride for free" sign on them. Numerous times, our cameras caught lines of people avoiding the front door fare box by pushing through the back door.
"It's running rampant. There's millions of dollars being lost," said one bus driver, who agreed to talk to us if not identified.
He said fare jumping is spinning out of control.
Back door fare-beaters
"There's no police on the bus. There's no one there to stop them," he said.
Passengers know it. There's no need to "sneak or slip" onto the bus. The fare-beaters we observed made free-riding look routine, and the numbers seem to prove it.
New York City Transit admits at least 137-thousand passengers every week steal a free ride. That's a loss of more than one million dollars every a month.
8 comments:
Unreal how the city crys out of money when the cops could be grabbing these free loaders and slapping them (and we all know what most are) with $500 fines, court charges and deportations.
Instead they are now going to put putting an 18% tax on Beer, Wine, Soda I-Pods and music downloads
At notorious bus stops, or on notorious bus routes, the drivers should keep the back doors locked and force everyone to exit through the front door.
I wonder what the demographic statistics are on these "back door men"?
"C'mon and take a free ride." - The Edgar Winter Group
"Shake for me girl, I want to be your back-door man." - Led Zeppelin
What cops?? They are not hiring any new ones until maybe June, if then, not that anyone of any quality is taking the police test. And the cops we have now in the city are bailing in droves. The young ones are leaving for other municipalities, and the older, more experienced ones are retiring and moving out of state, before it gets any worse here!
give the bus drivers guns and let them kill the freeloaders and everyone wins
Even if the MTA gets all this money that they are losing they will just piss it away just like the billions they are already pissing down a rat hole.
It depends on the route. For people getting on the westbound Q55, most are going to get onto the subway (L) when it reaches the final stop, at which point, they will pay.
In the meantime, the bus moves quicker.
Like the stats on how much "value" drugs have had they reached the streets, numbers like these are often inflated.
Many of the people entering the back way have already paid the fare with weekly or monthly unlimited passes. Some of these routes are so packed with rude jerks who refuse to move to the back of the bus that it is the only way to get in.
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