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Los Angeles Metro may end honor fare system
The only place with less honor than Los Angeles is (maybe) NYC
Really?! For all this time they have let riders go for free? Heads should roll for this
The POP system in a very large cities never works.
If they enforced it properly, would it work?
I’ve seen people board light-rail in Sacramento, San Jose and St. Louis without paying the fare but saw no one bypass the turnstiles in NYC. There are plenty of decent, honorable, and even helpful people in NYC that don’t deserve to be slandered.
Honor? Ain’t no such thing when the almighty buck is involved. Tri-Met in Portland, OR supposedly had an “Honor System”. Honor was never involved. It was a “Self-Service Fare System”. That means that you buy your ticket or pass - Self-cancel your ticket and be prepared to show your cancelled ticket or pass to a FARE INSPECTOR or be removed from the property and ticketed and fined for theft of service and tresspass. Honor had nothing to do with it. I’ve heard that NYC uses aprox 1/4 to 1/3 of the City Police Force to patrol and protect the subway and bus system. (please correct me, if I’m wrong) and that’s a heck of a lot of cops.
They have been robbed blind since forever. The politicians claimed there was only 3% fare evasion, but anyone riding can tell it is much higher…hardly anyone ever buys tickets! And people who are issued citations rarely pay them anyway!
I am surprised they would even do an honor system to begin with- people think “If it’s free it’s for me”
Jay, I belive that the transit system in New York has it’s own police force which, I bekieve, is seperate from the city’s regular police force. Most ransit systems have their own police/security forces nowadays.
In the San Diego area they check tickets, not 100% of the time, but enough to deter cheating. LA is NOT a city that should have ever allowed any sort of honor system, unless it was a wink-and-a-nod system that was intended to be free. Seems it was not free and this fare evasion was a surprise? In LA of all places? Sheesh!
Vienna has the world’s third largest mass transit system in the world. I’ve also ridden systems in Baltimore, California, and Texas that ran on the honor system. All of them have frequent inspections, and in Vienna the minimum penalty is ten times the fare. Mr. Hom’s opinion that the systems don’t work in large cities is correct only if inspections are neglected.
LA Metro has known for years they have been losing $4 million/yr. and they are just now doing something about it?
This happened because of budget cuts, and transit police were layed off. The subway there was much cleaner and safer before the fare gates were installed. Machines don’t always save money, and the fare gates have been a controversy from the start that never paid for themselves.
Fire and Police are supported by public taxes, not a charge at time of use. Why not transit? All of society benefits when Firemen extinguish fires, and when people ride transit.
Think of the reduced expenses: no revenue accounting folks; no Fare Inspectors [transit police can focus on crime, not fare colection]; no fare gates.
So what are the plans for monthly metrolink train holders,as of now my monthly ticket covers the metro subway. I have been stopped many times show my pass and im good. If they lock the turn styles my paperpass will not unlock it. Though the subway is cheap once added weekly on top of my 300 dollar train pass hurts the wallet.
I see this all the time in the Seattle downtown Transit tunnel with the Link Light Rail and it makes me so mad. Fare dodgers only hurt the system and should not be given a free ride!
NYC Transit police, once separate, are now part of NYPD.