A few weeks ago, the MTA introduced a new Select Bus Service on the M15 line, where riders are required to buy tickets on the street to board. In an effort to keep things moving quickly, nobody actually checks or scans that you have a ticket, you're just expected to have one in case someone asks, or risk a $100 fine. Bloomberg assured the public that most people are good, upstanding citizens who would never dream of cheating the MTA out of a $2.25 fare. Raise your hand if you can guess what happened when enforcement agents were dispatched on the bus this week.
If you guessed that they gave out 40 tickets a day along the First and Second Avenue bus line, congratulations, your jaded outlook is actually realistic. For the first two weeks of the bus service agents just gave warnings, giving riders who claimed to not know how the new ticketing system worked the benefit of the doubt. MTA Security VP Vincent DeMarino said agents will continue to help those who seem to not understand the system, but will write tickets for anyone found trying to catch a free ride. "This is not by any stretch of the imagination zero-tolerance enforcement," he told the Daily News. "We teach our people to use common sense, good judgment and discretion."
While the first few days of the SBS service were generally slow and messy, the MTA insisted that once the initial kinks were worked out, service could be up to 20% faster. When that proved wrong, because changing a payment system that already works doesn't equal progress, they decided to add more buses to the line. However, while waiting for the downtown M15 on Thursday around 3 p.m., we can tell you that it didn't seem like they were coming any faster than they used to. In 2009, the MTA lost $8 million to fare-beaters on the bus.
