BART has charted out a $90 million for a plan that will, in part, see the installation of fare gates that are more difficult to jump. The transit has previously estimated that it loses between $15-25 million due to fare evasion every year.
It’s 10:16 a.m. on a January morning and the alert goes out — BART inspectors are enforcing fare payments on the Embarcadero Station platform.
But it's also taking on fare evasion — commonly done with a quick and spry two-legged vault over the fare gate — with new infrastructure in its stations. Thus far, transit officials have responded largely by begging the federal and state governments for money and are contemplating increasing fares to bring in revenue. To raise much-needed revenue, BART has proposed raising its fares by 5.5% in both 2024 and 2025 .
The way to avoid a death spiral, these advocates say, is to invest in and improve public transit without relying on fare revenues — and without chasing down gate-jumpers. In other words, the greatest problem public transit faces is a 20-minute wait for a train, not the hop of a gate by a rider struggling to make ends meet.
The cost to BARTFederal COVID-19 relief has kept BART afloat through the pandemic, but it is projected to be depleted in 2025. The agency’s operating deficit is expected to be about $140 million starting in the 2024 fiscal year. BART has 16 fare enforcement officers that are deployed throughout the system, and the number of citations issued fluctuates with staff availability. Fare evasion citations dropped to a low of 68 in January, the most recent month documented on BART Police monthly chief’s reports. That represents a sizable drop from pre-pandemic days, when it was common for the agency to issue around 400 citations in a single month.
“We have tested some prototype designs of fare gates but have decided we need to award a contract for comprehensive design and construction,” Allison told The Examiner.“It was pretty clear we should do something different so it’s harder to fare evade," Saltzman said. Saltzman empathizes with this perspective and supports increasing the number of people who qualify for the low-income rider discount, which is currently anyone who earns 200% or less than the federal poverty level. And she'd be happy to reduce or eliminate fares — if the federal, state or local governments would commit to paying for it.
“In our experience, some individuals fare evade because they view it as a crime of opportunity,” he added.
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