Good morning. It\u2019s Wednesday. We\u2019ll find out why transit employees with hand-held devices are asking to check bus passengers\u2019 tap-and-ride payments. We\u2019ll also see what prompted Representative Joseph Morelle to visit the State Capitol in Albany.<\/p>\n
Buses in New York City are going European, New York City Transit says.<\/p>\n
That doesn\u2019t mean that they will be double-deckers that are driven on the left side of the street, as in London. It means that enforcement teams will be onboard, checking on whether you paid the fare when you climbed aboard \u2014 as in, yes, London, as well as Paris, Berlin and other European cities.<\/p>\n
This \u201crequires a cultural shift,\u201d said Demetrius Crichlow, the president of New York City Transit, the arm of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority that runs the buses and subways.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a significant shift, considering that slightly more than half of passengers \u2014 52.7 percent \u2014 skip the fare on Select Bus Service buses, which make fewer stops and often let passengers enter through their rear doors. Slightly less than half \u2014 48.6 percent \u2014 of the passengers on regular local buses don\u2019t pay. On express buses, the figure is only 6 percent.<\/p>\n
Crichlow told an M.T.A. committee last week that the fare payers resent the fare beaters: \u201cPaying customers have long said that they find it incredibly frustrating when they see other people who do not pay the fare.\u201d He added, \u201cI can\u2019t agree with them more.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said that the M.T.A. has worked to \u201cturn the tide against fare evasion\u201d and that \u201cwe\u2019ve had a lot of success on the subway side,\u201d thanks to changes that included putting semicircular sleeves on turnstiles to discourage fare beaters from jumping over or crawling under. But \u201cthere is still much work to be done on the bus side,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
So bus passengers \u201cshould now expect to provide proof of payment\u201d when asked, he said.<\/p>\n
Who wants to know?<\/p>\n
The request will come from an M.T.A. fare enforcer with a hand-held device that can check whether an OMNY card or a cellphone made a payment on the bus someone is riding on. The fare enforcers are civilian M.T.A. employees who belong to what the agency calls EAGLE teams. It is an acronym for Evasion and Graffiti Lawlessness Eradication. Crichlow called the members of the team \u201cthe face\u201d of stopping fare evasion.<\/p>\n
Crichlow said the hand-held devices that EAGLE team members carry do not accept payments. Nor do they store financial or personal data, he added. \u201cThese devices are designed specifically just for validation,\u201d he continued, adding that members of the EAGLE team have the authority to write summonses for passengers who did not pass the inspection.<\/p>\n
The EAGLE teams date back to 2008, Crichlow said, but mainly kept an eye on fare boxes in the days of MetroCards. \u201cWe never had the ability to validate the MetroCards,\u201d Crichlow said.<\/p>\n
That changed with the arrival of tap-and-ride payments using OMNY cards or cellphones. The M.T.A. stopped selling MetroCards at the end of last year. The Select Bus Service had required passengers to pay the fare at a curbside machine that printed out a ticket. On the bus, an EAGLE team member could ask to see it. But the sidewalk machines do not take OMNY cards or cellphone payments.<\/p>\n
Crichlow\u2019s boss, Janno Lieber, the chairman of the M.T.A., is an enthusiastic proponent of using the hand-held devices to check whether passengers have paid. \u201cThis is modern fare-payment technology, the way it works all over the Western world,\u201d he said. \u201cMy brother lives in Europe, and routinely when he gets on, somebody comes up to him and says, \u2018Show me how you paid, and let\u2019s validate that you paid.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Lieber added that \u201cwe haven\u2019t gotten a lot of pushback.\u201d But William Owen, a spokesman for the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, a civil rights and privacy group, criticized the validation action.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to fix the unaffordability of transit, which is why bus riders skip the fare,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is just another move to make transit in N.Y.C. exclusive and out of reach for lower-income New Yorkers.\u201d He added that despite Crichlow\u2019s assurances, \u201cwe need to be absolutely certain\u201d that personal data would not be collected by the hand-held devices.<\/p>\n
Weather<\/p>\n
Showers are possible today as temperatures near 71. Rainy conditions will continue tonight with a low around 53.<\/p>\n
ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKING<\/p>\n
In effect until May 14 (Solemnity of the Ascension).<\/p>\n
QUOTE OF THE DAY<\/p>\n
\u201cJeffrey Epstein was a great manipulator.\u201d \u2014 Leah Blume McGee, testifying at a New York State Senate hearing in support of a bill that would allow Epstein\u2019s victims to sue his estate for punitive damages.<\/a><\/p>\n The latest New York news<\/p>\n A message to Albany Democrats: Draw some maps<\/p>\n Representative Joseph Morelle returned to his old stomping ground, the State Capitol in Albany, with a message for Democrats: Get to work on drawing more favorable maps<\/a>.<\/p>\n Morelle, who had spent more than 20 years in the Assembly and now represents an upstate congressional district, was sent by the House Democratic leader, Representative Hakeem Jeffries, who sees New York as the focal point in the next clash of the redistricting wars.<\/p>\n Morelle\u2019s trip to Albany came less than a week after the Supreme Court struck down Louisiana\u2019s voting map as an unconstitutional gerrymander and only one day after he and Jeffries announced the creation of the New York Democracy Project, a redistricting initiative meant to counter Republican redistricting in Texas.<\/p>\n The national fight over redistricting is in high gear, because the Louisiana case made it harder to use the Voting Rights Act to challenge a legislative map as racially discriminatory. But despite Morelle\u2019s call for urgency, change in New York seldom happens quickly \u2014 and with redistricting, it cannot. Any redistricting bill must be passed by two consecutive legislatures and then approved by voters in a referendum.<\/p>\n The leaders in New York are now considering how far they want to go to change the state\u2019s Constitution, which contains anti-gerrymandering provisions.<\/p>\n Democrats currently hold 19 of New York\u2019s 26 congressional seats and are eager to pick up at least one more this fall. Representative Mike Lawler, a Republican from Rockland County who is thought to be the delegation\u2019s most vulnerable member, took issue with any redistricting effort. \u201cThis is New York Dems continuing their efforts to stifle Republican voices in the state,\u201d he wrote on X.<\/p>\n METROPOLITAN diary<\/p>\n Helping hand<\/p>\n Dear Diary:<\/p>\n I ride my bicycle 99 percent of the time. It\u2019s just me and the city. I move fast enough to keep things interesting, but slowly enough to catch the weather changing or feel the mood of the people on the sidewalks.<\/p>\n Every so often, I have to take the train. On very rare occasions, it\u2019s me, the train and my bike, a combination no one ever seems thrilled to encounter.<\/p>\n Because I know this, I try to shrink myself into an apologetic bicycle origami project once I\u2019m on the train. I fold. I hover. I whisper \u201csorry\u201d to people who haven\u2019t even seen me yet.<\/p>\n On one such evening, I was trying to avoid anyone\u2019s shins while hauling my bike up a flight of stairs after getting off the train, when I felt someone close behind me.<\/p>\n Terrified that I\u2019d clipped someone, I whipped around to see a smiling woman who had one hand casually gripping the back of my bike.<\/p>\n \u201cI got you,\u201d she said, like we were old friends moving a couch.<\/p>\n I told her I had it under control.<\/p>\n \u201cTwo hands are better than one,\u201d she said. \u201cI got you.\u201d<\/p>\n So we climbed the stairs together: me, my bike and a total stranger, moving in perfect, unspoken coordination. At the top, she let go, nodded and vanished into the crowd.<\/p>\n \u2014 Evan Abel<\/p>\n Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Tell us your New York story here<\/a> and read more Metropolitan Diary here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Good morning. 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