On top of its other corrosive impacts, farebeating costs the MTA big-time — some $690 million in 2022.
The b🙈ig-ticket breakdown: $315 million comes from bus-beaters, $285 million from subway delinquents.&n🧸bsp;
This, when the agency’s in a multibillion-dollar hole after the pandemic and crime fears have massively shredded ridership.
The subway is the city’s lifeblood, a true public square.
Harm t♛o it, financial or otherwise, is harm to us all.
Indeed, farebeating “tears at the social fabric,” as MTA chief Janno Lieber put it.
M🌠ayor Adams has pointed to the larger issue: “If we start saying it’s all right for you to jump the turnstile, we are creating an environment where any- and everything goes.”
Hence the NYPD’s recent crackdown on the practice — ramping up tickets and summons for farebeating by 75.6% and 83.5% year on year as of March.
Tellingly, more ser🤪ious subway crimes plunged 21.5% over that same period.
Going easy on farebeaters encourages them to keep doing it — and to act out more seriously once on the train or bus.
And when they get off, too.
Farebeaters🍒 often have other serious criminal pastimes, like toting illegal weapons.
I🍷t also tells the law-abiding that they’re suౠckers.
Truths ignored by then-Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance when he made his unforgivable decision in 2017 to largely stop prosecuting farebeating, a 🐲policy continued by his successor Alvin Bragg.
Vance pretended it wasn’t worth the resources to go after a $2.75 theft, but he was pandering to lefties who claim farebeating is a crime of poverty.
It’s not, and in ಌany𒀰 case low-income New Yorkers now qualify for big fare discounts.
Indeed, the patronizing “crime of poverty” lie is unique to the American left: It doesn’t fly from Montreal to London to Tokyo.
Fact is, US progressives don’t seem to care much about poor people unless they’re criminals.