Gov. Kathy Hochul is backing the MTA’s push to overhaul how fare-beating is policed with proposals that would increase fines for repeat offenders — but let first timers off with just a warning.
The plan, endorsed by Hochul in her 2025 budget proposal released to state lawmakers on Tuesday, would create a new “laddered” system of penalties for fare-beating, with a fifth-time offense escalating to a charge of theft of services.
First-time offenders would get a documented warning, which transit officials have backed as a way to formalize the discretion already granted to police officers and fare collectors for cases where someone has lost their wallet or their phone has died.
On the second offense, accused fare-beaters would get a $100 ticket — the current penalty — but $50 of that would go onto an OMNY card in an attempt to turn the scofflaw into a paying customer.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority justified the partially refunding the fine in its report, saying that it would help encourage better behavior.
A third offense would cost $150, and the fine for a fourth would be $200.
Fare-beaters could have their case dismissed, under the new system, if they show the summons adjudication judge proof that they have enrolled in the subsidized fare program, Fair Fares, for economically struggling New Yorkers.
Overall, fare-evasion cost the MTA an estimated $690 million in 2022 — with half of bus riders and 14% of subway commuters allegedly stealing a ride.
Total figures were not yet available for 2023, but officials have warned the losses may be higher.
The agency relies on fares and tolls to fund approximately $7.5 billion of its $19.3 billion annual budget.
A system similar to giving first-time offenders tickets already exists on the MTA’s commuter railroads, which allows riders onboard trains without a credit or debit card to have an invoice for their ticket mailed to their home address. The Long Island Rail Road only calls the cops after a rider has received $100 in ticket vouchers.
The new penalties laid out in the plan endorsed by Hochul would be part of the MTA’s multi-pronged effort to try and curb fare-beating.
Officials recently installed new fare gates at the Sutphin Boulevard-Archer Avenue station in Queens that swap out the classic turnstile for paddle-like doors as part of a program experimenting with new designs that are harder to beat and could be rolled out across the system.
However, The Post and a TikTok video star revealed that the system could be easily defeated thanks to a poorly placed door sensor that can be easily activated by just leaning over.
Other designs the agency is considering — including those used by the Paris rail and metro lines — include much taller doors that would be difficult, if not impossible, to reach across or jump over.
Additionally, Hochul’s budget proposal would allocate $61 million to push ahead with the engineering and design work on two high-profile transit projects she has adopted as her own.
The first, the Interborough Express, would use space alongside freight tracks that run from Sunset Park in Brooklyn to Jackson Heights in Queens for a new circumference rail line that would link the two boroughs together and provide connections to more than a dozen subway lines.
Officials say the $5.5 billion-14 mile system would net nearly 120,000 daily riders, speed up commutes and help slash congestion and pollution caused by cross-borough and intra-borough traffic.
The second calls for examining a possible western extension of the Second Avenue Subway from its current planned terminus at 125th St.-Lexington Avenue all the to 125th St.-Broadway, giving uptown Manhattan its first crosstown line.
The $7.5 billion extension would allow riders in Harlem to easily transfer between the A/B/C/D, No. 1, No. 2/3 and No. 4/5/6 trains without having to trek all the way to Midtown — and help relieve congestion on 125th St., which is one of the busiest bus routes in the city.
Transit officials have said they may be able to get the price tag down to $7.1 billion if they can keep the tunnel boring machines they plan to use for the extension to Lexington Avenue in the ground and continue digging westward.