Wow. Just as a white knight in the form of Amazon, Inc., rides in to help salvage the floundering Washington Metro mass transit system, Washington, D.C., City Council pulls a bone-headed move that could undo everything.
Amazon HQ2 will plop down a massive activity center near the Crystal City and Potomac Yard Metro stations, catalyze the development of walkable urbanism in the neighborhood, and throw in money to add new entrances to each station. Amazon anticipates that half of its expected 2,500 employees will ride the Metro, and it is logical to think that employees of the companies that grow up around Amazon will do so, too, eventually adding thousands of new riders to the system. What a life saver!
But in an 11 to 2 vote Tuesday, Washington City Council voted to decriminalize Metro fare evasion on the grounds that the use of criminal sanctions to collect fares… what else… disproportionately impacts African-Americans.
Data show fare evasion arrests, citations and warnings have risen dramatically — from 4,000 in 2013 to 15,000 in 2017, reports the Washington Post. Council member Charles Allen contends that police disproportionately target African Americans, citing the fact that 91 percent of Metro Transit Police citations and summons for fare evasion from January 2016 to February 2018 were issued to African-Americans. Metro estimates that it loses $25 million annually to fare evasion.
The Washington Post article mentioned no evidence presented by anyone, other than the raw statistics, to suggest that police were unfairly singling out African-Americans for enforcement.
City Councilman Jack Evans, who happens to be Metro Board Chairman, cast one of the two dissenting votes. He stated the obvious: “By decriminalizing fare evasion we are only encouraging people to not pay their fare. Because there is absolutely no mechanism to collect from a civil infraction. … You cannot steal from Metro. You can’t steal period. And if we get to a point where we say it’s okay to steal, I’m not sure where we are at this point in time.”
If curtailing sanctions leads to a surge in fare skipping and a decline in revenue, Metro will have to make up the balance from someone. And we all know who that will be — the taxpayers. Not just Washington taxpayers but Virginia and Maryland taxpayers, who subsidize Metro operations. Perhaps Governor Ralph Northam should issue a declaration to the D.C. City Council: Do what you want, but if the Metro suffers a decline in ridership revenue, you can make up the difference. Don’t come to us!
(Hat tip: Rob Whitfield)
