New York state will do whatever it takes to combat assault, but actually arresting people for assault is another thing.
The MTA lost a shocking $800 million to turnstile jumpers and other thieves last year. The answer was a boring, laughable effort.
Recently, a government agency awarded $1 million to researchers to study the psychology of fare violators and find out whether they are comfortable paying.
This week, metal plates topped with “spikes” (which look like corrugated ridges) were installed at the 59th Street/Lexington Avenue station, ostensibly to prevent people from grabbing the sides and jumping over them. (Apparently undergarments don't bother me, but I've seen professional women in shift dresses and heels go out of their way to save $2.90.)
Within 36 hours, the Post photographed a man shoving himself down with spikes, expressing his disdain for the MTA and our nation's laws.
“Oh, so I have to jump over it? Okay, I don't mind, I'll jump over it,” I heard him say.
But there are plans to install these useless flaps at 10 more stations. What a joke!
Remember last January, when the MTA tested $700,000 gates that didn't require a MetroCard and could be opened with a simple swipe of a sensor? There was also.
“In retrospect, we may have chosen a different model,” MTA Director Jano Lieber said at the time, adding: “We will continue to experiment, but this is not something we are implementing system-wide, and we are making adjustments to address some of the shortcomings.”
Of course, there are obvious solutions. It's about arresting people who evade fares.
But since 2020, lawmakers and progressive district attorneys have argued that doing so amounts to bias and is not inherently a crime. Police rarely stop people for enforcement of these “small” crimes, even though criminals wanted for larger crimes are often arrested.
The rest of us will have to pay to make up for the money lost due to this lack of common sense.
The new congestion tax would not only affect people driving below 60th Avenue, but also food prices, delivery fees and non-driver surcharges.
And the subways themselves are rising in price, likely to be $3 per ride later this year.
This is New York City, a place where we pride ourselves on having some of the brightest minds and greatest problem-solving skills. Just a few years ago, we could do this fairly effectively, but now it feels like we're going backwards.
We know how to resolve injustices, we just lack the collective will to resolve the problem.
Ultimately, this problem comes down to a crumbling culture that so many sectors of our society are responsible for. Cities were already descending into chaos before the pandemic. The new coronavirus has accelerated this. Progressive leaders stopped caring about quality of life issues and focused on unhelpful social justice efforts. We have become a culture of indifference.
And now all kinds of people, not just teenage school dropouts and vagrants, are jumping through turnstiles all over the world.
New York City has gone from a place that always advertised safety and order to a society of low trust. And it was self-inflicted.
A flimsy sheet of metal won't fix that.