A new pilot program requiring Subway riders leaving the North Hollywood station to use their TAP cards to exit is the latest attempt to improve riders' sense of security after a wave of violent crime.
While some riders welcomed the tactic, others were skeptical and some jumped the turnstiles to avoid the new rules.
TAP cards are reloadable fare cards used to access public transportation. Since most riders earn less than $50,000 a year, the agency has several programs to reduce the cost of the cards or provide them for free.
Introduced this week, the 90-day program aims to get people to use their TAP card and deter passengers who use the system for drugs or shelter and who often board trains without paying. It is combined with increasingly frequent cleaning, more traffic agents and a sweeping of the carriages, so that passengers do not loiter or pass out in their seats.
People walk past a Metro Transit security officer at the North Hollywood station on Wednesday.
(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)
“The goal is not to raise more revenue, but to enforce the rules,” said Stephen Tu, Metro's deputy executive director of station experience. Since its implementation on Tuesday, he said, the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority has seen a 90% increase in fare transactions at the gate.
Passengers will have to touch to enter and exit, although if they have already paid they will not be charged to exit. Law enforcement begins Monday.
Tu explains that the process encourages passengers who may not have entered through a fare gate to purchase their fares.
Those who do not pay may be subject to a $75 fine.
Authorities say most of those arrested in the system have not paid their fee. It is not unusual to see passengers jump turnstiles or use emergency doors to enter the system.
“It's about meeting fares and ensuring that the expectations of people coming into the system know that at some point in their trip their fare will be verified,” Tu said.
About half of all train stations have no entrance door, but Tu said that if the pilot goes well, it could be rolled out more widely, so that a passenger could still enter a station without an entrance door but find that to exit you need to show your card.
Around noon Wednesday, the station was packed with commuters and more than a dozen transit officers, Metro ambassadors, private security, LAPD officers, Metro employees and mental health workers.
“Now there is more order. I hope it stays like this,” said Juana Hernández de Maya, who takes Line B to sell used clothes near the center. “And that's good because there are drunks and drug users down here.”
And while the station looked like it had just been swept, at the top of a long elevator that goes up to the street, a person was crouched on the concrete, tracing the square with his fingers.
When it was pointed out to Tu the person, he noted that the plaza was city property and said Metro is trying to do the best it can on its properties. Tu helped bring classical music to the Westlake/MacArthur Park station to keep people from lingering amid a series of murders and overdoses last year. Across the street at the Metro G Line stop, a connecting bus route, he noticed several ambassadors, meant to assist riders and assist with homeless relief.
“I would feel better if there was more security at night,” said Lucy Rivera, a 64-year-old hairstylist who takes the train from the Vermont and Santa Monica station to the North Hollywood station at night. She wears a mask, she said, because of the smell of urine. She often sees people taking drugs on the train or coming in drunk.
In recent years, Metro has invested resources in improving the system. But its sprawling nature has made it challenging, with more than 100 miles of railroad tracks and more than 2,000 buses.
Martique Price is detained by Metro Transit Security and LAPD officers after a dispute over fare payment at the Metro North Hollywood station on Wednesday.
(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)
Metro is expected to consider creating its own police force, but the agency is also looking for ways that don't rely solely on more officers, guards or ambassadors, including this TAP test and even facial recognition.
But it's unclear how well this testing program will work. On Wednesday, several people jumped the gate when a traffic officer stopped a couple.
Brandon Price said he and his wife, Martique, were on their way to pick up their children from school and were questioned after using their son's TAP card. The card had been issued by his son's school in South Los Angeles. Metro has been pushing to increase youth ridership by providing free TAP cards to students.
Price and his wife, who had recently become homeless, said traffic officers confiscated the card. Price bought another card, but as they headed to the platform, an officer said the two would be banned from taking the train. They didn't receive a formal citation or anything in writing, but the ban left them scrambling to find transportation home for their children.
“It makes you feel belittled,” Price said. “At least for the rest of the week we will look for an alternative route.”
The attempt to enforce fares touches on a difficult debate within Metro about fairness and the presence of authorities. Social justice advocates have argued that too much money is being spent on police and officers without any noticeable improvements. They point out that black passengers, which the Prices are, tend to receive tickets more frequently.
A man jumps a gate in front of Metro Transit Security and LAPD officers, but was not apprehended at the Metro North Hollywood station on Wednesday.
(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)
Earlier this month, Mayor Karen Bass ordered increased enforcement. At the same time, she affirmed her belief in a fare-free public transportation system.
You said the latter might be possible.
“One of the things we learned from the improvements at Westlake/MacArthur Park was the importance of combining environmental design improvements (like Tap Out Pilot) with staff presence,” he said in an email.
“This could be used in any system, including the fee-free system, in the same way that library cards are used to lend books free of charge to patrons.”
Other major transit systems across the country already use a similar program, including Bay Area Rapid Transit,
Washington Metropolitan Transit Authority and Metropolitan Atlanta Regional Transit Authority.
Los Angeles City Councilwoman Monica Rodriguez, whose northeast San Fernando Valley district is slated for new light rail in the coming years and chairs the city's public safety committee, said this should have happened already.
“How do people respect a system when there are no rules?” she said. Other cities around the world have already adopted it.
“Our communities continue to struggle, yet they proudly pay their dues in a system that refuses to reinvest to protect them,” he said. “That to me is just a complete unacceptable failure.”
