Protestors need to be arrested and banned from the MTA

[adamj023]

These protestors keep screwing over the commute for people who actually pay their fares and have real jobs.

They should increase cops even more, and raise usage based fares and remove taxation as a way to fund the MTA as taxpayers are on the hook for the freeloaders. Bonds and other financing arrangements bring in investment capital which do not require taxation. These people don’t even pay taxes and damage MTA infrastructure. These protestors should be banned from the system forever and forfeited their right to ever use it and same goes for anyone else who causes this behavior of fare evasion and disruption and destruction. The mass media and online journalists keep encouraging these behaviors and it is wrong.

Facial recognition and/or biometrics need to be applied throughout the system and there shouldn’t be any way for people to bypass entry or exit checkpoints.

The biggest issues are the fare cost is way too low and the security is too weak. Improve both of those and you can solve a lot of the issues. Sure you need capital to fund the system but usage based fares and financing arrangements and advertising and the like are the way to do it, not taxation from people who aren’t using the system themselves.

 

[railiner]

Understand your frustration, and to some extent, I share it....but if every thing in life were financed strictly by those using it, society would break down, and the world would be back to "cave man" stone age. While some might think that would be a good thing, I certainly wouldn't. JMHO

 

[Thirdrail7]

These protestors keep screwing over the commute for people who actually pay their fares and have real jobs.

These people don’t even pay taxes and damage MTA infrastructure.

Are you insinuating that the protesters are all unemployed, fare evaders that don't pay taxes? If you are, I'm interested in how you know this. Did you interview them all?

Additionally, what is a "real job?" Is an internship a "real job?" How about working at a bodega? Is that a "real job?"

In case anyone is wondering what led to this shrill level of ranting, (and I was definitely not aware of what led to it,) I'm guessing it has something to do with this:

Subway Protest Takes Over Grand Central, Midtown Streets
https://patch.com/new-york/midtown-nyc/subway-protest-takes-over-grand-central-station

NEW YORK CITY — Thousands of protesters flocked to Grand Central Terminal and flowed out into Midtown's streets during rush hour Friday to protest increased policing and rising fares in New York City's subways.

The Decolonize This Place organized action followed a day of vandalism and civil disobedience throughout the transit system.

The protest was met with hundreds of cops who were seen arresting protesters shortly after the action started, dragging them out of the crowd and into the street. Twitter users said the arrests appeared to involve people wearing masks.

 

[adamj023]

I would assume these protestors do not pay taxes or have steady employment. The subway has had a lot of vagrants in the system such as homeless and mentally ill and panhandlers and criminals which is why police were added to the system to begin with.

The Long Island Railroad charges higher fares and doesn’t have the issues that the subway does such as the homeless problem. Professionals do use the subway and they should be charged their fair share to make the system better.

 

[jebr]

Thousands of people die in motor vehicle crashes each year. Their travel is subsidized heavily with tax revenue, and their use causes a disproportionate share of carbon emissions.

Methinks the problem isn't some protesters trying to make the subway fare-free.

 

[Ryan]

remove taxation as a way to fund the MTA as taxpayers are on the hook for the freeloaders

Those same taxpayers that benefit from thousands of more cars on the road should be freeloaders instead?

I would assume these protestors do not pay taxes or have steady employment.

Your assumption is faulty.

These people don’t even pay taxes and damage MTA infrastructure

Wrong.

These protestors should be banned from the system forever and forfeited their right to ever use it

For exercising their right to protest in a way that you don't approve of? Thanks for being a poster child for why we need a Constitution.

 

[adamj023]

Under Giuliani, and even Bloomberg the system was in better shape. This decline especially of quality of life issues has spiraled out of control under De Blasio. Governor Cuomo to his benefit actually brought more cops to the subways and that is when these protests started to occur.

The vast majority of these protestors do not have steady jobs and incomes and likely contribute nothing or very little to the taxpayer base.

A normal person with a good job going through the city subways is not going to damage infrastructure or sneak in to evade fares who is of sound mind and judgement. Even Former Mayor Giuliani tells the story of how a mass murderer was identified because he had evaded a subway fare in NYC.

 

[Thirdrail7]

 

[The Journalist]

Sir, this is a Wendy's.

 

[crescent-zephyr]

I’m not entirely sure what they are protesting? Is police being over the top?

 

[The Journalist]

I’m not entirely sure what they are protesting? Is police being over the top?

It's a "transit should be free" thing, which is the cause de jour of a certain culture of activism that largely has no idea how anything works and thinks "just ban cars" is a plausible, unproblematic method to do everything they want.

OP is deeply ridiculous as well, though.

 

[MARC Rider]

It's a "transit should be free" thing, which is the cause de jour of a certain culture of activism that largely has no idea how anything works and thinks "just ban cars" is a plausible, unproblematic method to do everything they want.

OP is deeply ridiculous as well, though.

Actually, over the past decades, I occasionally read stuff from policy wonks that discuss the possible benefits and costs of free public transportation. I don't remember how the costs and benefits balance each other, but I don't think that providing "free" public transportation (at least in large cities where it's widely available) is outside the realm of possibility. At the very least, when calculating costs, you can eliminate the costs involved with fare collection and policing fare violators. In any event, SEPTA manages to do it for senior citizens (as I again enjoyed the other day). Whatever costs were accrued by the City of Philadelphia or the State of Pennsylvania to provide me with the free rides were balanced out by the fact that my car wasn't clogging up the streets of Center City. (The streets where I learned to drive, by the way, for whatever that's worth.)

 

[MARC Rider]

Understand your frustration, and to some extent, I share it....but if every thing in life were financed strictly by those using it....

...all those people living in rural areas and exurbia and complaining about paying taxes for stuff used by urban people would all of a sudden have to start paying a lot more for the easy motoring paradise the taxpayers provide for them.

Personally, I think we should not only keep the gas tax (and make it even higher), we should institute a mileage tax, whereby what the motorist pays is determined by the distance driven. It would also help to have insurance rates set more by the distance driven than by less relevant factors like age and where you live. The combination of of policies will not only incentivize motorists to drive less, it will incvcentivize them to purchase fuel-efficient vehicles or even electric cars.

 

[The Journalist]

I don't really disagree with the idea in concept, and for systems with poor fare recovery the cost of collection and enforcement can be a measurable part of what gets taken in. But I also don't think it's a good general idea. If an agency like MTA or BART-which get over 50% of their operating budget from fares-got the budget to eliminate fares, it'd be much better to put that money towards modernizing and expanding their systems. That'd help the vast majority of ridership a whole lot more than eliminating fares.

What I am in favor of is largely decriminalizing fare evasion and helping those for whom transit fares are a legitimate hardship with income-based fare-free programs.

 

[AFS1970]

Living in the NYC metro area, I can tell you that based on the news coverage I saw, as well as some pics posted online, this was more terrorism than protest. Emergency doors were chained open, oil was poured into card readers, Paint covered screens, vulgar graffiti on walls. They even interviewed someone who, while I would guess has a job and pays taxes, said she personally held open an emergency door for 20 minutes. Regardless of which side you come down on in terms of their platform, this is not the way to effect change in a civil society.

 

[MARC Rider]

I don't really disagree with the idea in concept, and for systems with poor fare recovery the cost of collection and enforcement can be a measurable part of what gets taken in. But I also don't think it's a good general idea. If an agency like MTA or BART-which get over 50% of their operating budget from fares-got the budget to eliminate fares, it'd be much better to put that money towards modernizing and expanding their systems. That'd help the vast majority of ridership a whole lot more than eliminating fares.

What I am in favor of is largely decriminalizing fare evasion and helping those for whom transit fares are a legitimate hardship with income-based fare-free programs.

I can't really disagree, but I should note that your argument could be applied to the highway system as well. In some countries, all of the freeways are toll roads. In this country, suggesting that new freeways be toll roads would be a political non-starter, except, perhaps in a few really cheapskate states controlled by rural interests that don't want to spend anything to benefit the city slickers (or even the suburban slickers.)

 

[MARC Rider]

If an agency like MTA or BART-which get over 50% of their operating budget from fares-got the budget to eliminate fares, it'd be much better to put that money towards modernizing and expanding their systems. That'd help the vast majority of ridership a whole lot more than eliminating fares.

I suspect if you brought that up to the protesters, they would say that the transit agency should be adequately funded to both eliminate fares and modernize and expand the system. Obviously, where all that money is coming from is a political question, but I could sure pick out a lot of what I think are misplaced priorities in public spending that could be applied to modernize transit and make it fare-free to incentivize its use. Of course, others might disagree with the priorities I choose. That's the reason for politics, to work that stuff out.

 

[MARC Rider]

Living in the NYC metro area, I can tell you that based on the news coverage I saw, as well as some pics posted online, this was more terrorism than protest. Emergency doors were chained open, oil was poured into card readers, Paint covered screens, vulgar graffiti on walls. They even interviewed someone who, while I would guess has a job and pays taxes, said she personally held open an emergency door for 20 minutes. Regardless of which side you come down on in terms of their platform, this is not the way to effect change in a civil society.

"Terrorism" might be too strong a word to use (and it's far too overused anyway), but, yeah, I agree that the actions you described aren't a good way to get people on your side.

 

[MARC Rider]

Living in the NYC metro area, I can tell you that based on the news coverage I saw, as well as some pics posted online, this was more terrorism than protest. Emergency doors were chained open, oil was poured into card readers, Paint covered screens, vulgar graffiti on walls. They even interviewed someone who, while I would guess has a job and pays taxes, said she personally held open an emergency door for 20 minutes. Regardless of which side you come down on in terms of their platform, this is not the way to effect change in a civil society.

Having read the article cited earlier, I now realize that "holding emergency doors open" means "holding the emergency exit doors in the subway stations open," not "holding the emergency doors on subway trains open." I've seen people hold open exit doors all the time at subway stations even without protests. Absent a protest, it's basically fare evasion. It doesn't really prevent regular commuters from passing through, although I guess that people whose life consists of always keeping score might be a bit dismayed to realize that they paid $2.75 and the fare evaders paid nothing.

In the context of the protesters, it's civil disobedience to highlight what they see to be an injustice -- higher transit fares limit mobility of low-income people, most of whom, by the way, work and pay taxes. There's also the issue of whether the subway is under- or over-policed and whether the added police will disproportionately crack down on certain racial or ethnic groups. I can't answer that one, although I didn't see any real security issues during my rides last August (the last time I used the system) and my rides during the Gathering in 2018. I suspect that the news coverage is a little overhyped and that things were not as bad as the reporters insinuate. Nothing like yellow-press sensationalism to generate clicks.

 

[crescent-zephyr]

I would think residents of NY and surrounding areas should get discounts and the prices should get hiked up for tourists and business travelers.

 

[Devil's Advocate]

...prices should get hiked up for tourists and business travelers.

Tourists are already saddled with numerous fees and penalties, many of which are little more than cynical workarounds for residents who refuse to fully fund their own infrastructure. I can understand charging dissuasive/corrective fees for visiting environmentally sensitive areas, and I wouldn't mind helping to fund green initiatives that can benefit everyone, but in many cases tourists are already expected to fund absurd projects like building sports stadiums for billionaires.

 

[MARC Rider]

Here's the problem, and I don't blame the protesters, they're just picking the wrong target:

1970 (I used this year because that was when I started going up to New York and riding the subway, and it's well before the structural changes in the economy brought on by Ronald Reagan and his successors.)

Minimum Wage: $1,60 ($10.50 in today's money)
Subway Fare: Started at 20 cents, raised to 30 cents early in the year; 60 cents to go to Far Rockaway. (That's $1.35 in today's money, raised to $2.00 and $3.95 to go to Far Rockaway.)
Rental for 1 bedroom apartment: $200 ($1,318 in today's money)


2019

Minimum Wage: $15
Subway Fare: $2.75
Rental for 1-bedroom apartment: $3,000

The subways are only a little more expensive than they were in 1970. Real earnings (at least at the bottom) are actually a bit higher. The real problem is housing costs. I couldn't afford an apartment in New York City, and I have a six-figure income (or at least I did before I retired.) These people should be demonstrating in front of real-estate investment companies, landlords, the city housing department, etc, not at Grand Central Station.

 

[Bob Dylan]

Good post Joe, you should be running for President!

 

[MARC Rider]

Good post Joe, you should be running for President!

Nah, I'd rather be right than be President.

But housing costs are really something, all over the country. If housing was priced the way it was 40 or 50 years ago, people would have more than enough money for everything else they need. (Well, almost everything, there are medical expenses.) And nobody would care that a New York Subway fare was $2.75.

By the way, check out the subway fares in London: Single tube rides as much as 3 pounds. And Washington Metro fares are in the same ballpark.

 

[Bob Dylan]

Nah, I'd rather be right than be President.

But housing costs are really something, all over the country. If housing was priced the way it was 40 or 50 years ago, people would have more than enough money for everything else they need. (Well, almost everything, there are medical expenses.) And nobody would care that a New York Subway fare was $2.75.

By the way, check out the subway fares in London: Single tube rides as much as 3 pounds. And Washington Metro fares are in the same ballpark.

Yep, I've told lots of folks that the Best times Economically in my Lifetime for the Middle and Working Class were in the 60s when I lived in Washington DC and the 90s when I first retired and moved back to Texas.

Most of us could actually afford to live on what we made and debt was much lower!( and everyone didnt need their own room,car,phone,tv,computer etc.)

Housing and Transportstion were bargains compared to now!( well, Airline Fares are actually more affordable now than in those dsys)