Farebeating on the Big Apple’s bus and subway systems is rising, costing the MTA millions of dollars a year — despite a series of major efforts launched to try and stop evaders, new data shows.
Nearly half (41%) of bus riders commuted without paying on routes across the city during the third quarter of 2023, according to the figures from the MTA.
That’s up 4% from when the agency released its exhaustive farebeating report in May.
On the MTA’s Select Bus Service, which operates some of the busiest routes in New York City, fare dodging is as high as 48%, the data shows.
Skipping out on fares is also increasing on the subway system too.
An estimated 14% of subway riders jumped the turnstiles between July and September — the highest level recorded in the five years of MTA data published online.
That’s ticked up from the 13.5% recorded in the May farebeating report. However, fare evasion on the subway has more than doubled from the 5.7% reported in pre-pandemic 2019.
Overall, the MTA estimated that farebeating cost it an eye-watering $690 million last year — a figure that could be topped this year.
“Every time they beat the fare, they’re really beating themselves,” said Lisa Daglian, a member of the blue ribbon panel commissioned by MTA chairman Janno Lieber to track the incidents and publish the extensive report released earlier this year.
“That’s $2.90 that’s not going to service, that’s not going to an extra subway train or an extra bus run,” she said, adding that it is a “staggering amount of money that’s being stolen from the city’s transit system.”
The MTA declined to put a price tag on the current uptick as agency officials are expected to roll out their budget proposal for next year in the coming weeks.
Lieber, who has run the MTA for two years now, has made combating fare evasion one of his top priorities.
“It’s not just a matter of money, although it is a huge, huge financial issue,” Lieber told The Post’s editorial board this year. “Fare evasion tears at the social fabric as one way to put it.”
Lieber has launched a series of efforts aimed at cutting down on fare evasion, including hiring private security guards to stand watch over emergency exit doors at subway stations and tightening the gearing on the turnstiles to make them harder to wiggle through.
His highest profile push came when his blue-ribbon commission published its 125-page report that outlined a series of other shorter and longer-term programs that could reign in the losses.
The laundry list of recommendations included:
The MTA also signaled it eying the first redesign of turnstiles across the subway system since the MetroCard was introduced three decades ago.
Part of that redesign, officials said, could include incorporating the sorts of high-tech turnstiles commonly used in major European metro systems that are much harder to jump over and slip past — but are still clever enough to allow those in wheelchairs or with bikes and strollers to pass through with ease.
The MTA has not provided a timeline for how long it expects it to take to redesign and replace the gates across the system’s 472 stations, though it would likely take years.
The agency has said that it expects to officially solicit plans from vendors by the end of the year.
Progress elsewhere has been slow, too. There’s been little sign yet of the large-scale PSA effort sought by the commission and the MTA did not immediately respond to questions about the progress made in hiring fare inspectors.
“As the Blue-Ribbon report noted, the increase in fare evasion seems to reflect a deep-seated culture change since the pandemic – a new attitude among too many New Yorkers that fare evasion is acceptable,” said MTA spokeswoman Joana Flores.
“The MTA knew it would take time to rebuild the right attitudes,” she added. “We are determined to change this, and over time we will.”