Wonder why the MTA is facing a whopping $800 million budget hole, despite millions in congestion-pricing bucks?
Look no further than a bombshell new report on fare-beating from the Citizens Budget Commission.
The CBC's fare-loss figures are truly shocking—far higher than the $700 million to $800 million the MTA admits was lost, and three times the amount that vanished in 2019.
That was the year before COVID struck, but also, not long after city district attorneys opted to stop prosecuting most fare-evasion cases.
On average, the CBC report finds, people hopped on the subway without paying 330 times and on buses 710 times . . . every minute of 2024.
By the way, the $1 billion in lost fares is twice the congestion-pricing revenue projected for this year: Cut fare-beating to 2019 levels, and the MTA could ditch congestion pricing and still be ahead $100 million or so.
True, it's hard to put the toothpaste back in the tube; the agency itself opened another pit by announcing it wouldn't collect bus fares during the pandemic.
But CBC figures show that evasion rates began rising well before COVID—namely, after then-Manhattan DA Cy Vance (worried about lefty challenges to his future re-election hopes) kicked off the no-prosecution madness in late 2017.
Vance pretended these cases just weren't cost-effective to bring, but that meant ignoring a huge cost: Winking at fare-beating encourages far worse behavior all across the system so his craven decision is a key reason the subways and buses feel, and are, less safe than a decade ago.
Tellingly, the stats also show an uptick in arrests in 2024 (finally!) that might explain why evasion rates fell 28% for the subway and 8% for buses during the first quarter this year (over Q1 in 2024).
Still, 43% (nearly half!) of all straphangers on buses and 10% on subways aren't paying, even now.
The MTA has also experimented with various other ways to cut fare-beating: The report credits unarmed guards with an estimated 36% drop in fare-beating at locations where they've been used.
At modified turnstiles, it's down 60%.
But maybe nothing beats enforcement: Make these crooks face real consequences for cheating fellow New Yorkers.
Yet that means electing prosecutors who'll, well . . . prosecute.
Progressives pretend that penalizing fare-beaters amounts to criminalizing poverty.
That's always been utter rubbish: Many turnstile-jumpers and bus-hoppers aren't the least bit poor, and the MTA and the city offer plenty of discount and free-ride programs to low-income residents and others who qualify.
MTA chief Janno Lieber knows mass fare-beating is stealing not just agency revenue but the sense of safety so vital to a healthy system; Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch and Mayor Eric Adams know it too.
Too bad the city seems stuck with multiple DAs who won't admit the truth—and seems poised to elect in Zohran Mamdani a new mayor who's a committed truth denier.