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Home - California Politics & News - Liberals Shocked That Fare Enforcement Dramatically Reduced Crime on Bay Area Transit

Liberals Shocked That Fare Enforcement Dramatically Reduced Crime on Bay Area Transit

It’s fascinating to watch as American cities are forced to rediscover common sense.

An interesting report in The Atlantic, of all places, on Monday highlighted how the San Francisco Bay Area, like a broken clock, finally hit on a good idea.

The Bay Area Rapid Transit system, which for years has been plagued by low ridership and dysfunction, has apparently had a huge turnaround.

The Atlantic’s Henry Grabar noted, with some surprise, that all it took was one simple trick: Last year, BART widely installed new fare gates by station exits and entrances.

These new and improved gates made fare evasion dramatically more difficult than it was with the old 1970s-style, waist-high gates. I can’t even count the number of times I’ve seen fare evaders effortlessly hop over those old gates as if they weren’t even there.

The effect of just this one change has been staggering, apparently. Crime is way down 41% since last year, according to BART’s numbers—and maintenance costs have plummeted.

“Workers spent nearly 1,000 fewer hours cleaning up after unruly passengers in the six months following the gates’ installation, compared with the six months before,” The Atlantic noted.

This while ridership is way up. Revenue is now projected to increase by $10 million a year thanks to the change.

BART General Manager Bob Powers said in January that “infrastructure upgrades” alongside “improved fare gates and station lighting, with additional safety presence and customer-centered service” have made BART a more “comfortable experience for everyone who rides.”

What do you know, they’ve finally dabbled in the most basic steps to improve public transit ridership by making it *gulp* safer. Maybe this doesn’t seem as remarkable to you as it does to me, but I grew up in the Bay Area. The depth of policy........

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