har har hardy har har: still paying to ride the bus?

MTA bus drivers were heroes during the pandemic lockdown but cannot enforce every rule (photo courtesy MTA)

So I’m waiting for the Third Ave. bus at Fourteenth St., and the driver almost goes right past the stop. It’s a limited bus, meaning it doesn’t make all local stops.

A guy gets on in front of me, then, as I’m dipping my card, a young man squeezes in behind me and takes a seat.

I say to the driver facetiously, “So only some of us have to pay?”

As I go to sit in the back of the bus, to the Mafia seat that I prefer — from where I can watch everything unfold before me — the driver says over the PA, “Um, young man, please come up front.”

He’s referring to the twentysomething who didn’t pay, who immediately struts up to the driver; they have a brief discussion. I don’t see the young dude dip his MetroCard or tap his bank card, so I wonder what they talked about.

Fare evasion is a crime that comes with a $100 penalty (if caught), as specified in the MTA’s official Rules of Conduct and Fines. Other no-nos: littering ($100), interference with movement ($100), commission of harmful acts ($100), carrying weapons ($100), carrying long objects ($75), smoking ($50), seat obstruction ($50), non-transit use of facilities ($50), breach of peace ($50), and carrying liquid in open containers ($25).

According to an August 2020 Permanent Bulletin from MTA CTO Aileen White to Managers, Supervisors, Bus Operators, and All Concerned, “Bus operators in NYCT and MTA Bus are instructed that whenever customers refuse to pay the correct fare with coins, paper magnetic transfers, or MetroCard, or refuse to display the proper identification for reduced fares, it is their responsibility to politely state the fare. . . . If the customer does not comply, press F5 or Key #5 (Farebeat/Short Drop) and continue boarding customers. . . . Additionally, bus operators should press Key #5 whenever they observe fare evasion activity at the rear exit door. This does not apply to Select Bus Service.”

I rarely get on a bus or subway these days without seeing someone skip paying the fare. Although I want to be a good citizen, contributing my fair share, I sometimes think that if they’re not coughing up the $2.75, why should I? I understand the problems concerning class and racial injustice that impact evasion, but all too often it is people who seem like they have the ability to pay.

(Yes, I hear you: Who am I to judge? Well, in the inimitable words of bus driver extraordinaire Ralph Kramden, a statue of whom greets passersby at the Port Authority, to that I say, “Ha ha hardy har har.”)

A few months ago, I had just swiped my card and entered the platform at my local 6 train stop when I saw three bros, apparently drunk, start jumping the turnstiles. The first two made it with ease, but the third dude failed miserably, tangling his legs in the metal and falling hard to the ground. As his two friends laughed, he meekly squeezed through.

“It’s a lot easier to just pay the fare,” I said, sitting on one of James Garvey’s uncomfortable “Lariat Seat Loops.”

The bro, who was much bigger than me, slowly reached into his pocket while staring me down, said, “I got something for you,” and pulled out . . . his middle finger. Proud of himself for the psych, he then vaped and walked on with his buddies.

NYCTA Rule 1050.4(a): Entered without payment — $100.

NYCTA Rule 1050.7(b): Smoke, open flame, vape — $50.

NYCTA Rule 1050.7(h): Impaired by alcohol or drugs — $50.

NYCTA Rule TBD: Being a douchebag — priceless.

Shortly after that, I was sitting in my usual seat when a gentleman boarded a local bus through the rear exit door and attempted to pay by tapping his ATM card against the electronic reader. But those readers only work on SBS (Select Bus Service) vehicles; SBS riders are encouraged to go in through the back to speed up entry.

The man took a seat. I told him that you have to pay up front. He ignored me.

I explained that you’re not allowed to go in through the back door on this bus. He ignored me.

So I asked him, “You tried to pay, so why not go ahead and walk to the front and do the right thing?”

He ignored me.

I went on, “Seriously, what’s the big deal? I really want to know why you just gave up and are now not going to pay. The rest of us did.” (Which was, of course, not true.)

He ignored me.

A woman sitting across from him nodded at me.

Bus drivers were heroes during the pandemic lockdown, shuttling passengers through what was initially a desolate city. From March 23 to August 23, 2020, buses were free, and everyone had to enter through the middle and rear doors. Barriers were set up to prevent any close physical contact between riders and drivers, so the front doors were kept closed. And penalties increased for harassing or attacking drivers.

Apparently, those five months of gratis travel and backdoor entry are still reality for too many riders. According to a December 2022 article in City & State, the MTA is currently losing five hundred million dollars a year because of fare evasion on subways and buses. Transit authorities have programs that increase police presence and the hiring of private security guards to cut down on the freeloading, but I haven’t seen them.

The MTA recently announced that a fare hike was on its way, perhaps reaching $3.05 by 2025. Meanwhile, New York State assemblymember Zohran K. Mamdani of Queens is pushing “Fix the MTA” legislation, which would first freeze fares, then fund frequency, and eventually make all buses free. (Oddly, in the hyperlinked launch video, Mamdani is standing next to a poster for the nonprofit Museum of Sex, a private institution that the city government refused to charter.)

Bus drivers face fines, suspensions, and firing for such offenses as DUI/DWI and making unscheduled stops in addition to running red lights, overtime abuse, ethical misconduct, procurement issues, and other forms of criminality.

Perhaps I’m a little more conscious of transit rules because my great-aunt Rose was hit and killed by a city bus when she was eighty-one; I don’t know what happened to the driver. The odds of getting hit by a bus are 495,000 to 1; I still remember the thudding sound of a bus I was on striking the head of a young woman who was at the stop, looking the wrong way down Forty-Second St. Miraculously, the woman did not seem to be injured, but I went up to the driver to make sure he was okay, as it can be traumatic for everyone involved.

Back on the Third Ave. bus, where I started this journey, the driver pulls over at a 7-Eleven between Twentieth and Twenty-First Sts. and announces, “I really have to get some coffee.”

Leaving the motor running, he gets off the bus and goes into the store.

“Anyone know how to drive a bus?” I call out.

“Hey, this is like a movie,” the guy who got on with me and paid says.

After about four minutes, the driver returns. Heading uptown, he stops at Twenty-Third and Twenty-Eighth, where he’s supposed to, but then lets someone out at Thirty-First, which is not a stop.

I push the button to request the next limited stop, Thirty-Third, but the driver flies right past it. I walk up front and ask him, “Wasn’t that a stop?”

“Thirty-Fourth St.,” he says to me. It’s been several years, prepandemic, since the MTA got rid of the Thirty-Fourth St. stop because of construction.

“But you’re past Thirty-Fourth too,” I say.

“Okay,” he mumbles, and quickly pulls over into the usually heavily trafficked right-turn-only lane at Thirty-Sixth that leads into the Midtown Tunnel.

He opens the door. As I try to figure out what exactly is happening with him, a young woman in a hurry says, “Excuse me,” and pushes past me to get out.

Speaking with the driver is not about to satisfy my curiosity, so I get out as well.

I tell my doorman what just happened.

“That guy was loaded!” he bellows.

Just another day on the MTA, the best $2.75 — or free — show in town.