Silly RantWoman. RantWoman still naively hopes that asking a search engine for a specific document will immediately yield a link to the document, AS THE FIRST LINK in the search results. Thankfully, the Urbanist article and the KIRO radio links below this video both have a direct link to the Metro fare enforcement report.
For grins, RantWoman read the whole report. The report is presenting the raw numbers requested in the ordinance that requests the report. RantWoman still has questions not addressed by reporting that only looks at the numbers.
RantWoman has ridden every route addressed in the report at least once and usually on a round trip in the last 12 months. So RantWoman's opinions are informed by lived experience. RantWoman considers fare payment a mark of good citizenship, an indicator that she has her own act more or less together. RantWoman always just pays for a disabled pass because that is so much easier than payment for each ride.
RantWoman may have encountered fare enforcement once on Metro and once on Sound Transit during the study interval. At some point RantWoman's disabled pass got demagnetized and whichever fare enforcement officer RantWoman met looked at the ORCA app on her phone, and told her she needed to get a new card. Since then, RantWoman's card has reliably beeped as expected when tapped.
RantWoman wonders where the estimate that 30% of passengers don't pay fares comes from. RantWoman's estimate would be more like 20% based on what she can observe. However, some of the routes surveyed are so crowded during peak times of the day that people literally cannot get to the card reader to tap their cards. These same routes have plenty of capacity at other non-peak times. By peak times, RantWoman means both regular commuting hours and times when there are concert or sport events RantWoman is VERY glad people take transit to.
All of the routes listed are heavily traveled frequent routes, with frequency as high as every 6 minutes. So, one obvious way to look at raw numbers of fare enforcement contacts would be to look at some kind of ratio, say, of contacts per 1000 boardings.
During non-peak hours when the bus is mostly empty. but when the bus is almost empty, if passengers are clean and well-behaved, RantWoman is just FINE with people using the service, especially if their destination is something like a governmental or social service. Well, passengers who get on the bus carrying a bathtub sized latte and can't pay their fare get a disapproving look and the acknowledgment that one can't pay a bus fare with, say a Starbucks gift card.
RantWoman is aware that transit services are paid for in large measure by sales taxes which are highly regressive. If people can't come up with bus fare because they have paid sales taxes, RantWoman still figures they have at least partly paid their way.
Several media reports note that many of the people who received citations are "experiencing homelessness." If they can't pay bus fare, is anyone surprised that they don't pay fines either? Clearly though, actual payment of fines is not necessarily a great indicator of program success. Fare enforcement officers are also supposed to help direct people to options to be able to pay fares and to other relevant resources.
So one obvious question: what is the trend about people getting signed up for low income or senior / disabled fares? And can the trend be linked to the work of fare enforcement officers? RantWoman has seen firsthand how just having a bus pass, reliable transportation can help people manage all the inconveniences of homelessness and get them on to paths toward more stable situations. It is not obvious to RantWoman how one might illustrate this point with numbers, but it should be considered when evaluating the fare enforcement program.
Here though we also come to the public safety concerns that are part of the push behind fare enforcement and to driver comments that people causing problems tend also to be people who haven't paid their fare. RantWoman would definitely look more deeply at that concern.
RantWoman is not at all charmed by drug use on buses or near bus stops. If it were up to RantWoman people also would not smoke tobacco or weed near bus stops. Worse than drug use though are assaults and verbal abuse. RantWoman would be interested to know whether presence of fare enforcement officers reduces on-board crime, either compared to runs when there is no office present or overall.
RantWoman also wants to know more about the increase in fares collected overall. Is that because informational programs are reaching the people they are intended to reach? Is it because more people have figured easier ways to pay their fare? Is it possible to quantify whether the fare enforcement program has contributed to the uptick in fare revenue.
