Asides

Throughout the spring, the Daily News has seemingly slammed the MTA for its failure to crack down on fare-beaters along the Bronx’s Bx12 Select Bus Service route. With the MTA and New York City’s Department of Transportation set to introduce pre-boarding payment methods to various Select Bus Service routes throughout the city, bus riders and, more importantly, city politicians were up in arms over these developments. The mass screamed: How could the cash-strapped MTA be giving rides away with this new-fangled pre-boarding payment thing? Rabble rabble rabble.

What if, though, this supposed fare-beating problem is a myth that just isn’t true? In today’s Daily News, Pete Donohue presents the other side of the story. He profiles Transit’s Eagle Team of fare inspectors as they combat fare-beaters and check for proof-of-payment tickets in the Bronx, a job they will soon carry out in Manhattan as well. While Transit proclaims fare-beating to have declined from 13 percent in the early days of the Select Bus Service experiment to 10 percent, Eagle Team inspectors say they found just 3.7 percent of nearly 18000 riders without fare confirmation receipts. The team of enforcement officers either issues summonses or directs passengers to pay their fares.

With this article, then, the Daily News is seemingly attempting to put out a fire its original coverage started. Donohue makes it sound as though neither Transit nor the tabloid’s editors believe fare beating to be a major problem. As with any business, some revenue loss through fare-beating is bound to happen, but if those running this pilot believe the problem to be within acceptable parameters, the paper’s coverage shouldn’t give politicians who fail to understand even the most basic of transit issues another platform for outrage.

A watered-down version — but a version nonetheless — of legislation granting New York City the ability to use cameras to enforce bus lanes has passed the New York State Assembly transportation committee, and transit advocates, as Streetsblog explains, couldn’t be happier. The bill itself has a long way to go before becoming law; it has to pass the Codes and Rules Committees and then suffer through full votes in both the Assembly and State Senate. However, as Ben Fried notes, considering how David Gantt, chair of the transportation committee, has killed similar measures in committee before, it appears as though Sheldon Silver is finally willing to allow the Assembly to pass this legislation.

On the surface, then, this development is a positive one. After all, if bus lanes aren’t going to be physically separated, the city needs some sort of effective enforcement technique. The bill, however, isn’t very strong. It allows for only limited use of cameras. While the photo devices can be fixed-location devices, mobile units or bus-mounted cameras, the entire camera enforcement program can “cover no more than 50 miles of bus lanes and operate only on weekdays from 7:00 am to 7:00 pm.” The MTA and DOT plan to roll out far more than 50 miles of bus rapid transit lanes over the next few years, and these limitations are disappointingly short-sighted for a change.

The City Council has sent a home-rule bill to Albany requesting permission to implement camera enforcement measures in the city’s new bus lanes. While the State Senate has approved such a measure, the New York Assembly has yet to pick up the issue. If this sounds familiar, well, it’s because history is repeating itself. The bill, which passed by a 46-4 vote, will once again have to clear Sheldon Silver Assembly, and the last time a bus measure bill got this far, David Gantt killed it.

This year, however, things should be different. For starters, as I mentioned, the State Senate has already signed off on these measures, and the city and the MTA have ramped up bus lane expansion plans. Furthermore, Assembly Transportation Committee head Gantt has said he’s more amenable to a bill this time around. For the city to implement effective bus service, it needs this approval from the state. “Today’s home rule message sends a clear signal to the state legislature that expedient public transportation in bus lanes is a top priority for the city of New York,” Gale Brewer, a council sponsor of the bill, said. And now we wait while putting pressure on Albany.