Fare Evasion on Muni (credit card, transfer, to buy)

[oceanpoetry]

Something I've noticed recently is how common fare evasion is on Muni buses (when back door of the bus opens for departing, people board, 99% do not swipe a clipper. How can Muni continue to operate allowing that kind of fare evasion? It must be costing public transportation in the city a great deal of money.

[mayorhaggar]

Most public transit services get most of their revenue from taxpayer money rather than fares.

In any case, you only really see the fare evading on Muni on a few busy lines, especially the 14 Mission bus but also the 49. Otherwise most people pay their fare. I just don't get why SF can't have a system like Chicago or NYC did like 10 years ago where you'd get a plastic card and slide it through a slot when you'd board, in Chicago at least it seemed to keep people honest, for one thing they couldn't wave some grimy transfer they bought 10 hours ago and get waved through by the driver like a lot of people do. The Clipper system is alright but Chicago was setting up a similar touch device system when I moved out of there about 7 years ago. SF really is the city that can't do anything.

[dlyoung123]

That's kind of a shame. Just raises cost for everyone else who uses the system.

[jade408]

Originally Posted by mayorhaggar

Most public transit services get most of their revenue from taxpayer money rather than fares.

In any case, you only really see the fare evading on Muni on a few busy lines, especially the 14 Mission bus but also the 49. Otherwise most people pay their fare. I just don't get why SF can't have a system like Chicago or NYC did like 10 years ago where you'd get a plastic card and slide it through a slot when you'd board, in Chicago at least it seemed to keep people honest, for one thing they couldn't wave some grimy transfer they bought 10 hours ago and get waved through by the driver like a lot of people do. The Clipper system is alright but Chicago was setting up a similar touch device system when I moved out of there about 7 years ago. SF really is the city that can't do anything.

People always mention transit is supported by tax payer funds, but you never hear anyone say roads are also tax payer subsidized....

Clipper (aka translink) is the system that took forever. I literally did a beta for it in 2000. It took 10 years to get out of beta testing!!!!!!!

And the only change in 10 years: the card became blue.

The problem in the Bay is that every podunk town thinks they need an independent transit agency. If we could consolidate into a single transit district, or even 3 districts, we'd have better service and coverage.

[ImRandy]

Originally Posted by jade408

If we could consolidate into a single transit district, or even 3 districts, we'd have better service and coverage.

That would make more sense and as much as I don't want to pay for it I'm leaning toward it being free. At least the inner city part of the system.

[juppiter]

Ive said it before, but as an NYC transplant it's different than it is for NYC natives.

Most transit complaints strike me as crybaby complaints because it's by far the best system in the nation and NYC natives don't realize that because they've never lived anywhere else.

Seriously, I don't know how most poor people do it without a car. They are not lucky enough to have a comprehensive transit system to bring them to work. NYC poor are lucky. That they should be further subsidized is laughable when Inner city poor in other US cities have no public transit at all.

[modernist1]

Fare evasion seemed to be far more common a couple of decades back - hordes swarming in through the backdoor.

[bmw335xi]

As long as the heads of MUNI are getting big paychecks and pensions they dont care

[clongirl]

I was in NYC with my family a couple of years ago we decided to take the subway to some museum or something. My husband stood in front of one of those dumb machines to purchase 6 tix--three "youth"., the rest adult. He struggled and was pissed because he was forced to buy them all individually which was a major time waster--credit card in/out etc. (of course, people were also pissed off, backed up, obviously impatient, waiting behind him as he tried to figure the system out). So he turned to the guy behind him and asked- obviously very frustrated and sweating profusely at this point), "How the hell do I just purchase three individual child's tickets? "). The guy said, " tell them all to crawl under the turnstile. Don't worry about it. It's how we do it here".