70% of WMATA bus riders don't pay

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This began when the city council decriminalized fare evasion. It was stupid because it was a solution in search of a problem, and sent the unmistakable message to the public that you don't really have to pay if you don't want to.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This began when the city council decriminalized fare evasion. It was stupid because it was a solution in search of a problem, and sent the unmistakable message to the public that you don't really have to pay if you don't want to.

Yes, encouraging law breaking is always a bad idea. 48 hours behind bars for fare evasion would solve the problem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This began when the city council decriminalized fare evasion. It was stupid because it was a solution in search of a problem, and sent the unmistakable message to the public that you don't really have to pay if you don't want to.

Yes, encouraging law breaking is always a bad idea. 48 hours behind bars for fare evasion would solve the problem.

And cost tax payers far more money than would be recovered.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This began when the city council decriminalized fare evasion. It was stupid because it was a solution in search of a problem, and sent the unmistakable message to the public that you don't really have to pay if you don't want to.

Yes, encouraging law breaking is always a bad idea. 48 hours behind bars for fare evasion would solve the problem.

And cost tax payers far more money than would be recovered.

Nobody was ever actually arrested for not paying their fare. But the deterrence effect it had was powerful. Now that's gone and we see the result.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Bus is super cheap. I can understand not wanting to pay for metro subway though. I like to take my kids downtown during the week in the summer and I feel like I'm always charged a rush hour fare of $6.50 no matter when I go. $6.5x 3 people x roundtrip= $39 just for a short trip

It will never not be weird to me that DC has spent untold billions of dollars on bike lanes and street car, which no one asked for and barely anyone uses, while completely neglecting the subway system. The subway moves more people and prevents more greenhouse gases in a day than bike lanes and the late, unlamented street car would in 10 years. So, of course, we neglected it. It wasn't shiny and new enough for the children who run the city council.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This began when the city council decriminalized fare evasion. It was stupid because it was a solution in search of a problem, and sent the unmistakable message to the public that you don't really have to pay if you don't want to.

Yes, encouraging law breaking is always a bad idea. 48 hours behind bars for fare evasion would solve the problem.

This.
And cost tax payers far more money than would be recovered.

Nobody was ever actually arrested for not paying their fare. But the deterrence effect it had was powerful. Now that's gone and we see the result.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This began when the city council decriminalized fare evasion. It was stupid because it was a solution in search of a problem, and sent the unmistakable message to the public that you don't really have to pay if you don't want to.

Yes, encouraging law breaking is always a bad idea. 48 hours behind bars for fare evasion would solve the problem.

And cost tax payers far more money than would be recovered.

Add a fine to cover the cost.

[Anonymous]

So will the public transportation system in DC go the way of grocery stores and pharmacies in poor neighborhoods? They lose so much through theft that they eventually just close entirely?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Local governments could give SmartTrip cards to the genuinely poor that would have that local government reimburse WMATA for the fares.

Everyone then has to tap in with a SmartTrip card, and the poor are taken care of.

Problem solved.

+1000. I would prefer everyone ride free. No stigma and no economic discrimination.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This began when the city council decriminalized fare evasion. It was stupid because it was a solution in search of a problem, and sent the unmistakable message to the public that you don't really have to pay if you don't want to.

Yes, encouraging law breaking is always a bad idea. 48 hours behind bars for fare evasion would solve the problem.

And cost tax payers far more money than would be recovered.

I agree it's far cheaper to allow busses to be free than to criminalize, feed and hold people over a $3 fare. MoCo has had free bus rides since 2021 and there hasn't been an uptick in crime or smell in the busses.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So will the public transportation system in DC go the way of grocery stores and pharmacies in poor neighborhoods? They lose so much through theft that they eventually just close entirely?

Hardly think a system that gets money from two states and a district + plus fares will close. If it does it's be ashes of greed and mismanagement

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:ALL the metro busses say "FARE REQUIRED" on the front sign. And still no one is paying?! Says a lot about this area.

Please. We still have dumbasses who get on the bus and don't know the difference between an express bus and a local bus. And we've been running express buses in one form or another for a decade now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
It will never not be weird to me that DC has spent untold billions of dollars on bike lanes and street car, which no one asked for and barely anyone uses, while completely neglecting the subway system. The subway moves more people and prevents more greenhouse gases in a day than bike lanes and the late, unlamented street car would in 10 years. So, of course, we neglected it. It wasn't shiny and new enough for the children who run the city council.

No wonder you are extremely ignorant, to put it mildly, on how WMATA gets funded. Hint: WMATA is more than just DC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Bus is super cheap. I can understand not wanting to pay for metro subway though. I like to take my kids downtown during the week in the summer and I feel like I'm always charged a rush hour fare of $6.50 no matter when I go. $6.5x 3 people x roundtrip= $39 just for a short trip

$40 to take two kids on the subway is insane.

But that is what it costs to take a couple of kids downtown. It is almost always cheaper to simply drive and pay for a garage.

DC needs to figure out what the priority is. To me, it's fewer drivers on the road and less pollution, so I'd prefer both to be free and/or inexpensive. For awhile, Tenley only had 2 hour parking, which made it impossible to even metro to Cleveland Park for dinner. Opening it to 4 hours means that I take the metro more often.

Why would you drive to Tenley and then metro to Cleveland Park? I am trying to figure out where someone would live that there isn't bus transportation to Tenley, isn't walking distance to Tenley, and that Tenley is the closest station.

We used to go to dinner Bindaas or Indique and it's easier to park in Tenley than CP.

[Anonymous]

Misread...It's nearly a 10-minute walk to the bus, which does not run on the weekend to get to Tenley from many parts of Barnaby Woods and Hawthorne.