We won't need our usual dose of six episodes of Storage Wars and pint of Schweddy Balls to sleep easy tonight: the NYPD collared a subway fare-beater thanks to the assistance of a mechanic. According to the Daily News, police had one cuff on 40-year-old Bolly Camara after they caught him sliding under the turnstile at the 170th Street 4 Train station in the Bronx when he slipped away. Running into the JR Jerome Auto Center, Camara begged 36-year-old mechanic Junior Borgen to remove the cuff with a torch. But instead of aided and abetting Camara, Borgen, an auxiliary cop himself, notified a police van. more ›

Al Capone. Jeff Dahmer. Ted Kaczynski. All subway fare-beaters.* Put aside the fact that jumping the turnstiles is cheaper even if you're caught, and that folks from all walks of life pass through an open emergency exit every now and then. Cheating the MTA is a gateway to a life of inequity and sorrow, or so implies the Daily News' Pete Donahue, who interviewed a 17-year-old freeloader. more ›

Almost 1,000 of the city's transit workers, and Reverend Jesse Jackson, rallied at Penn Station yesterday against the MTA's layoff of nearly 500 employees. Protesters argued that the lack of security in subway stations will lead to more crime, fare evasion and confused tourists. more ›

The Bx12 may invite fare beating on buses, but the Elmhurst Avenue G,R,V station is apparently the easiest subway station in which to skip turnstiles. The Daily News counted one fare beater every 10 minutes one day in March, adding up to $353.25 in lost revenue. One local student said, "Whoever you ask will tell you the same thing: It's not fair. The rest of us pay. Why don't they?" Because they can get on the subway for free. more ›

Even after losing about $8 million a year from bus fare beaters, like those cheating the Bx12 honor system, the MTA has no plans to inflict harsher punishments or change the system. They're actually expanding it to First and Second Avenues in Manhattan. MTA spokesman Charles Seaton told the Daily News, "The officers are out there every day, so we're not going to do anything special. Cities all over the world have implemented rapid transit buses. It's part of speeding the buses along." That's right—scofflaw commuters in European cities have been riding without paying for years. Now it's finally our turn! more ›

Even though the MTA is losing around $8 million a year from bus fare evaders and is thus implementing drastic service cuts, people still aren't paying! Though most bus drivers are guilty of being too lenient on riders who conveniently "forgot" their MetroCards, riders on the Bx12 are guilty of abusing the experimental "honor code" ticket system. The Daily News reports, "Over the course of an hour at each stop, 40 fare-beaters boarded the bus at Fordham Plaza sans tickets; 22 did so near the Pelham Bay IRT subway stop, and 27 at the stop on Pelham Parkway at Williamsbridge Road." more ›

Little is publicly known about 34-year-old Ashish Shah of Jersey City at this time, but police say his life ended Sunday morning in the trash compactor of The Olivia, a luxury apartment building near Penn Station. A building employee tells the Post that for the second time in as many days, Shah had arrived outside The Olivia in a taxi and ran inside without paying. Police believe Shah had been "drinking for several hours" before his death, and It's unclear who, if anyone, Shah knew in the building. But just before 6 a.m. he was observed dashing past the doorman to the elevators. Cops say he took an elevator to the 36th-floor roof level, but after his attempt to get to the sun deck tripped an alarm, Shah took the stairs down to the 35th floor, where he somehow fell into a narrow garbage chute, plummeting to the garbage compactor 28 stories below. One resident tells the Daily News, "It's amazing that someone could fit in that hole." more ›