Fare evasion costing BART a lot, so stopping it a rising priority

A man jumps the turnstile at the BART station at Civic Center despite gates that were installed (seen at left and right) to deter fare evasion in San Francisco, California, on Thursday, Aug. 16, 2018. A man jumps the turnstile at the BART station at Civic Center despite gates that were installed (seen at left and right) to deter fare evasion in San Francisco, California, on Thursday, Aug. 16, 2018. Photo: Gabrielle Lurie / The Chronicle 2018 Photo: Gabrielle Lurie / The Chronicle 2018 Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Fare evasion costing BART a lot, so stopping it a rising priority 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

BART estimates that fare evaders cost the cash-strapped transit agency $25 million a year in lost revenue, but for all of the talk of making it tougher to get onto BART without paying, hardening the fare gates has once again come up on the short end of the must-do list.

BART’s budget calls for spending $2.4 million in the coming year to raise fencing and put alarms on the emergency service doors in 10 stations.

That figure compares with:

• $5.6 million for station “cleaning, brightening and refresh programs.”

• $4.1 million to hire 19 new police officers and four fare-evasion officers.

• $2.9 million for more elevator attendants, portable toilets and homeless outreach services.

“We must bring station entrance replacements to the top of the priority list, above the planned projects for pretty plazas, art projects and bike valet stations, said BART director Debora Allen. She wants to spend at least as much on making sure fare gates do their job as BART lost last year to gate jumpers.

There’s also a safety component to the argument.

“It’s the unpaid teens who commit a majority of our robberies (mostly cell phones and laptops), the mentally ill, the homeless sleeping on the trains, the drug addicts — none of them pay,” said BART Police Officers Association President Keith Garcia, who began patrolling on BART in 1993. “We need to harden the system to prevent access and stop the problems before they start.”

“People want to feel safe,” BART board President Bevan Dufty said.

Photo: Noah Berger / Special To The Chronicle A BART rider, who declined to give his name, receives a citation...

Dealing with the problem, however, has been a years-long tug-of-war between those who want stepped-up police patrols and those concerned that too heavy a police presence would criminalize the poor, the mentally ill and minority youth.

The one solution everyone appears to agree on is to make it tougher for fare evaders to get into the system in the first place.

“Creating physical barriers to fare evasion is more efficient than law enforcement,” BART director Janice Li said.

The police agree.

“Once that’s done, we are going to have a much safer system,” Garcia said.

BART directors Allen and Liz Ames wanted to put $25 million into station hardening. Their motion failed Thursday when the board took a budget vote, in part out of concerns that moving the money would strip funds for other necessary infrastructure work.

Allen, however, is still pushing the idea.

“If we focus on the fare gates and making people pay, we will have plenty of money left over later for those other things,” she said.

Swapping out all of the system’s 600 consoles for sturdier gates would cost $115 million to $135 million, a recent BART report concluded.

Instead, BART has opted to modify existing gates by raising barriers, installing alarms on the adjacent swinging service gates, and adding security fences around elevators.

The gate question is also a symptom of BART’s planning process, which is often slow to react to problems.

BART didn’t consider fare evasion a priority until the past couple of years, when it became clear that the system was losing money and riders.

“It is a new project, which is why there hasn’t been several years of funding,” BART spokeswoman Alicia Trost said.

BART did, however, find $60 million for 22 new canopies over station entrances along Market Street in San Francisco.

“The gates lock at the top, so people don’t sleep in the stairwells at night. It’s a big safety enhancement,” Trost said.

Meanwhile, BART has completed hardening — mostly fencing around the gates — at 17 of its 48 stations. In the coming years, it plans to spend $18.4 million on hardening the entrances at 16 stations. That leaves 15 stations to go.

San Francisco stations, where the problems are the worst, are getting special treatment.

“We are modifying the fare gates at the San Francisco stations to make it harder for people to walk through and are testing two designs to keep people from jumping over them,” Trost said.

Those modifications include making the gate flaps harder to push open and adding a second tier at chest height.

“It’s not always easy,” Dufty said, noting that altering the gates has raised concerns from advocates for the disabled that the new gates are less accessible.

Local fire marshals have also raised concerns that redesigned gates might impede mass exits in emergencies.

Meanwhile, money and riders keep leaving.

San Francisco Chronicle columnist Phillip Matier appears Sundays and Wednesdays. Matier can be seen on the KPIX-TV morning and evening news. He can also be heard on KCBS radio Monday through Friday at 7:50 a.m. and 5:50 p.m. Got a tip? Call 415-777-8815, or email pmatier@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @philmatier