11-25-2019, 11:07 AM
(11-25-2019, 08:37 AM)danbrotherston Wrote: Having an aggressive police presence has very real costs, it makes the transit system look dangerous, and unpleasant, and frankly, it is unpleasant. Drivers do not suffer this level of enforcement, despite commiting vastly more crime, and causing vastly more harm as a result. Given the complete failure of our fare payment system, this is a substanial negative for the system. Do not discount the negative effects of enforcement like this.
As a side note on driving, I would very much like to see a cost analysis to see whether fare avoidance costs more than the direct and indirect costs of collisions involving the LRT.
Four unarmed transit officers is not an “aggressive” police presence.
I missed the “complete failure” of our fare payment system. I understand it has problems, but “complete failure” feels like hyperbole to me. My impression is that transit enforcement is understanding of people having trouble with it; if anybody is aware of problems with their reaction I’m interested in hearing about it.
As to the costs of fare avoidance, it’s not about the cost of the current level of fare avoidance. Enforcement is about making it clear to everybody that the fare system is not an “only losers and chumps pay” policy, which is what a no-enforcement policy would be. I consider myself a pretty honest person, but if it became clear that transit enforcement was effectively non-existent, I fail to see why I should be the one to continue paying even if large portions of the population were getting away without paying.
I’ve heard that they have really intensive enforcement in some European cities. I’ll bet it costs way more than the cost of their fare avoidance, but they have judged that they need to maintain the appearance and actuality that everyone who rides contributes to the cost of running the service.
As to driver enforcement, totally agreed. I have been dismayed by recent articles which seem to be saying that the number of tickets issued in recent years is way down compared to the past. Everything I said about only chumps paying applies to traffic laws too, except that there are usually safety problems with violating traffic laws.