The MTA has doubled the number of private security guards stationed near subway stations’ emergency exits, a spot authorities call “the freeway of fare evasion” that poses a challenge for officers.
According to budget documents, the MTA expects to spend more than $35 million by next year to increase the number of unarmed security guards to 1,000, whose mere presence at the gates is intended to slow the influx of fare dodgers who use the gates as a free way to get in.
The MTA estimates that nonpayment of tolls on its subways, buses and commuter rails, as well as on its toll bridges and tunnels, costs it $700 million to $800 million annually.
“It deters people when they see someone in uniform standing at the gate, so I think it’s a good idea,” said David Jones, an MTA board member who sits on the agency’s high-profile panel on fare and toll evasion. “And I can assure you it costs far less than a fully trained police officer.”
The private guards, contracted through security firm Allied Universal, will be deployed “strategically” between stations, an MTA spokesman said. The agency estimated in May that fare evasion at the 50 stations where they were initially deployed would fall by 20 to 30 percent in 2022.
Although the New York Police Department has increased the number of officers in stations and on platforms in recent years – and with it, as the data shows, increased the number of citations and arrests for fare evasion – the new, unarmed station guards lack police powers.
Instead, blue-clad gate guards in safety vests stand near the emergency exits. Several of them told the city they were instructed to avoid confrontations while directing potential fare dodgers toward the turnstiles.
“If we weren’t here, there would literally be someone standing next to the gate in my place just allowing people to come in,” said a security guard at the Third Avenue-149th Street station who asked that his name not be published.
NYPD officers continue to use their enforcement powers, department data shows. In the first six months of 2024, the number of citations for “theft of services” for nonpayment of fare increased 9% compared to the same period in 2023. By the end of June, nearly 69,000 citations had been issued. The 42nd Street-Port Authority Bus Terminal stop had the most of the 472 stops, with 2,072.
“People need to get to places”
MTA Chairman and CEO Janno Lieber said he was hit hardest by complaints from regular passengers about fare evasion.
“The people I hear from the most and who make the biggest impression on me are people with limited means who get frustrated when they see someone walk past them on the bus without paying or push through an exit gate on the subway,” he said after the agency’s board meeting in July. “We owe it to the people who follow the rules in their lives not to make them feel like suckers.”
After the high-profile panel issued recommendations last year to reduce what it called a “crisis” level of fare evasion, the MTA said it had made some progress in curbing the practice.
When it comes to buses, however, the authority faces an even greater challenge: transport companies estimate that almost half of the nearly 2 million passengers do not pay admission.
New strategies for the subway include design changes to 1,400 turnstiles in 100 stations to prevent people from pulling the turnstiles in the opposite direction and slipping through without paying, delaying the opening times of some emergency exits by 15 seconds and deploying additional security staff.
“It’s a step,” board member Jones said of the guards. “I don’t think it’s going to be a panacea.”
In all the stations in Brooklyn, Manhattan and the Bronx, THE CITY saw people trying in vain to talk their way past security guards at the emergency exits, but also groups of people waiting for unguarded doors to be held open so they could enter without paying, while out of sight of two police officers on the platform.
“I don’t have it,” said Antoine Brown, 38, as he waited for a gate to open at Jay Street-MetroTech in downtown Brooklyn.
At 34th Street-Penn Station, passenger Damion Samuels said he sympathized with New Yorkers who overbid on fares.
“Life in the city is getting harder and harder, people have to get to places,” he said. “People have to do what they have to do.”
At the Third Avenue-149th Street stop, 27-year-old William Walvin stood at the turnstiles to the northbound platform, waiting in vain for guards to let him into the station.
“If I go through when the gates open, I get a ticket from the police, and I’m not trying to get a ticket,” said Walvin, who is unemployed. “So I have to go straight to the guards and be honest and say, ‘Look, right now I don’t have one and I’m just trying to get a ride.'”
