Metrolinx is moving to close a long-standing legal loophole that has prevented the agency from fining UP Express passengers for fare evasion.

A report going before the board of the provincial transit agency next Thursday recommends formally bringing the airport train service under the same fare enforcement regime as GO Transit, which would enable Metrolinx transit officers to ticket UP Express riders who don’t pay.

The move follows the Star’s publication in November of a story that publicly revealed the loophole. Metrolinx has known about it since the UP Express launched in 2015.

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According to the report, the new policies will “allow for a more consistent and effective approach to fare enforcement and the recapturing of lost fare revenue.”

If approved by the board, the change will go into effect on Feb. 22.

Metrolinx’s most recent estimates indicate the fare evasion rate on UP Express is about 5 per cent, which costs the agency $1.7 million a year.

The agency’s inability to fine airport train riders stems from the fact the UP Express was initially not included in the Metrolinx Act, the provincial legislation that allows the transit agency to impose bylaws on its GO network.

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The UP Express was originally omitted from the legislation because it was conceived as a joint public-private venture under which a subsidiary of SNC-Lavalin, not Metrolinx, would operate the service. The deal with the company fell through in 2010.

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The Ontario Progressive Conservative government amended the Metrolinx Act last year to incorporate UP Express, but to enforce fares Metrolinx had to amend its own bylaws, something it hasn’t taken steps to do until now.

Without bylaw authority, Metrolinx transit officers have relied on general trespass orders and criminal fraud charges to deter would-be scofflaws.

Under the current system if UP Express riders who haven’t paid are confronted by transit officers they’re given the option of buying a ticket on board the train. That policy has left Metrolinx “vulnerable to fare evasion,” according to the report.

Under the proposed changes, UP Express riders who don’t pay will face the same zero-tolerance approach Metrolinx has been using to combat fare evasion on GO Transit since April 2019. They will no longer be given the option to buy a ticket on board, and will instead be issued a fine, which starts at $100.

The agency is planning a communications strategy to alert riders about the new policy.

The conduct of Toronto transit officers has come under renewed scrutiny recently after a video posted online showed members of the TTC’s enforcement unit in a violent altercation with a streetcar rider last Friday. The TTC said last week it was retaining an external party to investigate.

Metrolinx spokesperson Anne Marie Aikins said “there is a clear expectation for all of our staff that they treat every customer with fairness and with the utmost respect” and “any customer concerns are taken very seriously and investigated thoroughly.”