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Comments
Passengers to T driver: In
Passengers to T driver:
In 2007, MBTA issued a policy where you open all doors so people with passes can board in the back and not have to go to the front. Learn your own company policy.
Doesn't matter what door you enter.
Although this is an old article, from last year, it is fitting:
http://www.bostonherald.com/blogs/news/on_the_t/in...
When you go in the rear doors, pass or not, you must go up front to use the fare box. Even if it is just to beep your monthly pass.
Unfortunately in the crush of people it becomes difficult to enforce this except those few stops where they have an inspector with a card reader in the back of the train or on the platform.
x-ray specs
How is the trolley driver suppossed to know you have a pass when you board the rear door. Maybe the T can spend some of that homeland security money and equipp the drivers with x-ray specs
Fare Evasion
I'm sure that all of the scholars at BU and other colleges recognize that they individually benefit from society's investment in a 'Public' Transit system right outside their front door. Surely they are appreciative and always pay their share for this wonderful benefit.
Indeed, the whole higher education
industrysystem demonstrates that both public and private philanthropic investments in individuals benefits the commonweal.But just in case I'm being a bit overly idealistic, perhaps the MBTA should 'persuade' the local universities to start using student ID's as Charlie Cards. After all, many students for years have been able to use their ID to buy their morning Latte, why not the MBTA?
At Northeastern a few years
At Northeastern a few years ago that was a big issue in the SGA presidential election. I'm pretty sure it won't ever happen because of whatever coding the MBTA has, it would involve sharing it with schools. There was some other reason but I can't remember off the top of my head what it was.
Plus...people lose their college IDs so, so frequently. It's easier to replace a CharlieCard than your school ID (and the former doesn't cost anything, I know NU charges $15 - or at least when I was there, they did - for a new ID).
University T Passes
There is a proposal out there to do what they do out in Amherst. All university students at T-central locales (BU, NU, Suffolk, etc.) pay yet another fee that then gives them a never-ending gobstopper of a T pass for the years they're enrolled at the University. For those that are already using the T it's basically the same. For those who might occasionally use the T, perhaps they're encouraged to use it more often (and keep their cars off the road) and for the rich foreign students jetting up and down Comm Ave in cars that I'll never be able to afford....well, they'll help subsidize the rest with their unused T passes. It results in increased revenue for the T and increased ridership.
PAT did this when I was an undergrad...
I went to Pitt in the early 00s and they had this for the PAT system (though Pittsburgh is mostly buses, not subways). There was a fee tacked on of maybe $60/year, like the computer lab and gym fees, and you just flashed your student ID and could ride all you wanted. I think CMU had a similar program. I don't see why they can't set up a similar system in Boston.
MIT CharlieCards exist
At least some MIT affiliates have the option of getting an MIT ID that's also a CharlieCard.
University T Passes
When you consider faculty/staff and students (undergrad and grad), you've got a huge chunk of riders. Have them all on a U-Pass program and provide a bit more of a guaranteed revenue stream for the T. It might encourage some folks to get out of their cars and take public transit to work/school (provided they can get the thing back into an acceptably reliable shape).
And as long as they're going with gambling as the solution to our State's economic woes, they could put slots in the train to keep passengers entertained while stuck in the T.
Fare evasion will only get worse unless...
Same old, same old.
The rampant fare evasion problem on the Green Line will not change unless and until either: (1) some kind of turnstile-type apparatus is installed at every door allowing passage from the outside in only after presentation of a pass (cash riders up front only; the turnstile operates freely in the inside-outside direction and folds or breaks away in the event of emergency); or (2) the T promulgates a regulation that fare evaders get hit with a serious penalty (I'll throw out at least a $250 fine - that has enforcement mechanisms to compel payment) and conducts random pass/receipt checks as I have seen performed on metro systems in European countries. Yes, even when they are crowded.
If the T is not willing to spend the money on either solution, this will not stop - and it will get far worse when the rates go up (a lot) in July.
The T will never be able to catch everyone, but even if it convinces 50% of evaders to comply it would probably be worth it.
I doubt the turnstile would
I doubt the turnstile would work well for a variety of reasons: one being that it's redundant in underground stations that already have faregates installed. Also I doubt the trains have the space to be retrofitted with these and it's even worse for riders with disabilities.
That said, they really ought to install fare readers on all doors. Other transit operators like the Muni in SF are starting to do this.
The turnstile idea is pretty
The turnstile idea is pretty dumb.
How about just placing card readers so people have the ability to pay? Most of the time, boarding in front is just not an option.
No need to get sassy, J
Perhaps you can tell me the answer to something that I am clearly missing though -
What leads you (and the anonymous above you) to believe that the card readers on the back doors would actually be used, and not just walked past by fare evaders in the same manner they are just walking on now?
Dumb as a fox?
The turnstile idea isn't new. It's implemented for buses in other countries. It can even have humorous effects.
Once a few years ago, it was asked of the Green Line why they don't put readers/fare boxes at the back doors too and the response was that there wasn't space to do it or they would.
Just give us a place to tap
Just give us a place to tap our cards/validate our LinkPasses. They don't even need fare boxes. All the rear doors need are the RFID pads. Don't even need a display. You tap your card, *DING*, light turns green, and you're on.
The honor system has to be employed to some degree no matter what method of fare collection you use (no different than the current).
Like your free rides there J?
Somebody wants to high speed jaywalk across Comm Ave jump on and off without paying, not have to actually pay, cross a barrier, and wait.
Drivers will bear the brunt of fare hike
If you were a trolley driver or bus driver would you risk geting pummelled because no one wants to pay the fare hike.
Why not install a couple of
Why not install a couple of readers at each of the rear doors (the existence of the handheld readers suggests that they don't have to be very large) so that people can swipe there as well?
A few people might sneak in, true, but spot checks by roving T employees with handheld readers (as is done in Europe) might help to catch some of them or deter the practice, if in fact it is so commonplace as to make that level of enforcement cost-effective.
Alternatively, they could follow the model of the London Underground and require a card swipe to exit (which therefore means that you had better have swiped to enter the system), though this would not stop people from avoiding fares for trolley trips entirely aboveground, and would pose problems when the trolley readers are broken and the conductor waves people on.
But as priorities go, I'd rather see them repair, improve, and expand the trolley and subway networks; I doubt that fare evasion on the individual level (as opposed to that guy who was making real but unauthorized passes by the tens of thousands) is the biggest issue that the T faces.
Right on
It's a complicated setup to enforce fare payment on, but the roving inspectors/proof-of-payment set up is probably the best bet.
Ideally, you'd want off-board fare collection as well. In other words, people would swipe at the platform, and in the case of a CharlieTicket receive some sort of validation slip, so everyone's paid up by the time they get on. Then, frequent checks by police officers would see if people actually had a pass or a validation slip. Of course, they do this in part on the D Line, but it's not required, so you still have people lining up to get on at the front door. If you did this right, we could get just rid of the 2nd and 3rd operators on Green Line trains - cause everyone could get on at all doors. And things would be faster as a result.
If we had a billion dollars, sure, we could build enclosed stations at each Green Line stop, with faregates and platform doors that open only when a train is in the station, that's definitely the ideal.
In Paris...
... we were on a bus that got "invaded" by a ticket and pass checking squad. The bus stopped and was boarded by five or six people -- who checked out everyone. People with no valid ticket were given citations -- unless they did not have adequate IDs, in which case they were arrested.
A better idea
Stop pretending that the Green Line is a streetcar and gate off most of the already completely separated above ground stops, requiring passengers to pay to enter the platform.
Even on the D Line, that's not completely straightforward
At Longwood, for instance, the station platforms double as a pedestrian crossing point from Olmsted's Riverway park to the adjoining Brookline neighborhood.
And on the B, C, and E Lines,
And on the B, C, and E Lines, many of the stops are next to street crossings. Even if you put gates on the platform, what would prevent someone from just walking up on to the platform via the tracks from the street?
Link to photo of platform at Coolidge Corner as an example:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dfasules/4686239817/
The Green Line is a streetcar line, there's no pretending.
What they need is true proof of with real fare inspectors.
What would keep people from
What would keep people from walking to the platform over the tracks? And how would you do this at the many many stops that consist of little more than a strip of sidewalk a few feet wide?
You need to get out more
There are developing countries that have effectively solved these issues.
Developing countries have low
Developing countries have low wages and can pay someone to stand on the platform to enforce the rules.
Last time I rode the Green
Last time I rode the Green Line regularly was 1973, and we didn't have these problems then. Just sayin.'