Throw That Ticket Away; Muni Can't Make Fare Cheats Pay

I don't get it. Can't they send unpaid citations to a collections agency?

50 inspectors = 150 tickets a day? So on average it takes almost 3 hours for them to spot a violator and write a ticket? That seems way off. I've *never* been on a train where they've come through and not found someone who didn't have a pass or transfer. Takes 2 minutes between stops, plus maybe 10 minutes to actually write the ticket. Granted, there are two inspectors involved, but sometimes they catch multiple violators. Where is the rest of their time going?

And agree with the prior comment about using a collection agency. Or the existing collection mechanisms the MTA already has in place for parking tickets. I realize that less duplication of effort may mean fewer folks earning $35/hour, but...

we are paying $73K/year to each fare inspector?

amazement.

let's take a third of them and put them on collections.

after all, those scofflaws riding muni must live close enough for a home visit by a fare inspector.

This isn't the only agency that's bleeding money, or rather not making as much as it can: Have you tried calling DPT lately? They've changed the answering system and now they include plenty of inane blah-blah-blah before routing your call to a phone that is rarely answered. I guess they've reduced the number of agents and the ones that remain are either over-worked or under-motivated to answer calls - - - revenue that the city is losing.

So how are they supposed to collect the fines if they can't even compel someone to give identification? The pop cops ought to be done away with outright. Fare enforcement should be handled by SFPD and the tickets criminalized.

Originally, the city did criminalize the citations as they were considered traffic violations and people were required to show-up to the Hall of Justice to contest it. The city realized it was a waste of people's time and the taxpayer's time to have court hearings over a fare evasion ticket so they moved it to the other process where it's treated like a parking ticket. Hearings are instead heard at the SFMTA customer service center in front of a representative; but people can still challenge it in court if denied.

Yeah. I remember that as I actually did get a citation before it was decriminalized. The problem with treating a fare evasion ticket as a parking ticket is that there are no consequences. With a parking ticket it'll end up as an additional fee on your vehicle registration after a long enough period of time. With enough parking tickets your car will get booted and towed. If you don't have valid identification on your car, it can be towed and you can be fined.

If the POP stuff is expected to work, whomever is doing the fare inspection needs to have *some* power.

After reading this post and the SFGate post on the same topic, I think SFGate missed the issue completely.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/cityinsider/detail?blogid=55&entry_id=59951

SFGate reports fare evasion is "on the decline" although "just 60 percent of the fines are actually collected." The post then goes on to cite positive changes to increasing fare enforcement, while totally ignoring the issue raised by the Appeal--lack of an effective enforcement process due to legal issues. Where's the city attorney on this issue? Oh, right, running for Mayor.....

I happened to come across the meeting on sfgov TV.

Two comments from my recollection:
The presentation showed they collect $1.7m annually. $900K was a number of years prior.
Still falls short but fare inspectors are needed as a deterrent.

As the deputy police chief eluded to, it would probably help if fare evasion was elevated to a criminal offense as is the case in other places. In line with SF values, fare evasion is decriminalized now, so the leverage's gone.

Ahem...comparing the salaries/fines as a way of judging the system makes for easy copy, but it isn't completely accurate.

Part of the goal of the fare inspectors is issuing fines for scofflaws, yes. But it is also designed to increase the overall collection of fares thus increasing the amount of money collected at the bus/train/whatever.

The problem is, of course, there's no line items to really compare, so people just go with the ratio, because it makes it easier to write.

Of course I disagree with your damning remarks, Greg, regarding the quality of Chris' reporting (and my editing), as well as your implication that we took the easy way out.

As noted in the piece, Dougherty admitted in the meeting that the MTA had "no metric to determine whether or not the fare inspection program encourages riders to pay up."

And that's accurate -- I was watching the meeting, too. Chu asked Dougherty if they had any statistics on the deterrence factor, and he admitted they did not. He did not go on to say something like "but I'm sure they do deter evaders" or anything of the kind -- and Chu gave him opportunity to speculate, an opportunity he did not take.

If the MTA is refusing to even make estimates on any deterrent factor related to a fare inspection program, but we did, now, THAT would be inaccurate.

So, no, the story isn't written this way because it's "easier to write," and we stand by its accuracy.

That is an absolutely insane salary to pay these people. Especially to perform such a simple task and with doing, what is generally agreed to be, a poor job of it.

My girlfriend only makes 2/3rd as much as they do working a white-collar job for a major company. I have two bachelor's degrees in hard science and I can't even find a job. The only possible explanation I can have is that they're covered as part of a union and, as city government repeatedly refuses to stand up to unions, they're paid a ludicrously inflated salary as a result.

This sort of job ought to be paying minimum wage, max. It's not like we're afraid that we won't be attracting the top talent or that we're desperately in need of people to fill the open positions. Yes, there's a high cost of living here, but when you're staffing a job that can be done by a high school drop-out -- and could be easily eliminated by a few policy changes and some simple machines -- this salary is well above the level that our tax money should be paying. Especially with the massive cuts in service and increases in fares.