I was riding the 182 back from a public meeting in Colonie last night after dark. No less than 3 people boarding the bus through Arbor Hill’s rougher neighborhood didn’t pay their fare. They had their excuses – app didn’t work, didn’t have exact or enough change, they were broke. The driver just waved them on, probably not wanting to get knifed, assaulted or cause unnecessary disruption. It’s the ghetto.

To be fair, we’ve all had similar issues – the app is far from perfect, the card doesn’t auto renew properly, you dropped your dime somewhere, you forgot to ask for a transfer when boarding the bus back when those were a thing. But you know probably with the high number of non payment of fares through Arbor Hill it’s likely that not all of them were accidental or equipment failures. Seems kind of unfair after you’ve paid your fare.

That said, I don’t agree with necessarily a crack down on fare evasion. How do determine legitimate vs non legitimate non payment of fares? I don’t think drivers should argue with passengers and risk getting assaulted over non payment or stop the bus and await for the police to arrive and sort out the ordeal, especially when some non payment may be legitimate. Keeping the bus schedule is more important as people have connecting buses and jobs to get to. And it’s not like even fares are a big revenue source for the authority – it’s only about a 1/5th or less of revenue – the rest is taxes and government grants that keep the authority afloat.

I think the do think that the solution is to continue to adopt more universal access programs where employers – often of lower income employees – pay a fee to CDTA in exchange for allowing employees to ride the bus for free by tapping their card. Which is great for those employees who work for such employers, assuming they haven’t misplaced their cards or there isn’t a bug in the system.

But like private health insurance, too many people are left out. The unemployed and seniors don’t get Universal Access.  Many don’t get this benefit from college or work — I do wish my employer participated. It’s why I support making all buses fare free, avoiding the hassles and delays of fare payments – and increasing the focus on moving the buses down the road and getting people to their destination over tiny, obnoxious little nuisance fares.