Are BART's extra-tall fare gates stopping jumpers? We saw 56 people skip paying in 1 hour.

There are many styles of BART fare evasion. There's the tailgater, someone who tags closely behind a paying rider and slips through the gates. There are the people who just walk through the swinging emergency exit doors, which at many stations don't set off any kind of alarm. And then there are the jumpers, who foist themselves over BART's waist-high gates in order to avoid paying.

It's this last category of fare evaders that BART is targeting with a new set of extra-tall gates at the Richmond Station.

We set up a camera at the station for one hour and watched as people navigated the heightened security. Of all the passengers passing through during the early evening commute, we saw 56 people appear to enter or exit without paying.

(When SFGate staked out 16th Street Mission Station last year, we saw 90 people in 92 minutes appear to skip paying as they passed through the normal fare gates. Read more on that here.)

Our primary mission was to survey whether or not the new gates had an apparent effect on fare evasion, but we noticed a few other hiccups along the way. While the gates seemed to stay open long enough for most passengers to move through in time, that wasn't always the case for riders with bikes. We saw the gate slam shut as one passenger tried to carry his bike through, trapping the bicycle in its clutches.

"Oh no, I'm not going in there," a passenger with a bike told the station agent. "I just saw a guy get chopped in the head."

The agent let him through the swinging side gate.

And despite being relatively new, we witnessed a few operational difficulties. One of the fare gates, the widest one built for riders with wheelchairs, strollers or suitcases, was broken shut for 15 minutes while we were at the station. It confused dozens of passengers before an employee finally came out to address the issue.

A BART employee at the station confessed the moving parts of the fare gates often break down after being manhandled by riders.

A commuter is seen through an opening between the blades of a new prototype fare gate at the Richmond BART Station in Richmond, Calif. Tuesday, July 9, 2019. A commuter is seen through an opening between the blades of a new prototype fare gate at the Richmond BART Station in Richmond, Calif. Tuesday, July 9, 2019. Photo: Jessica Christian / The Chronicle Buy photo Photo: Jessica Christian / The Chronicle Image 1 of / 30 Caption Close Are BART's extra-tall fare gates stopping jumpers? We saw 56 people skip paying in 1 hour. 1 / 30 Back to Gallery

From what we observed after an hour at the station, it looked like people were more deterred by us — and our camera set up on a tripod — than the new and improved gates. Still, plenty of people scooted through, appearing not to pay.

The super-sized gates aren't the only new design BART is testing; they're also trying a pop-up style gate at Fruitvale BART. But even a station agent told KQED they were "just a complete joke."

It makes sense BART wants to crack down on fare evasion — the problem is estimated to cost the agency up to $25 million a year. But several recent attempts to recoup some of that cash have had mixed results.

In 2016 the transit agency bolted shut many of the swinging doors at San Francisco stations often use to skip fares, but it was deemed a fire code violation and they were ordered to reopen.

In 2018 fare inspectors upped citations, issuing tickets to more than 1,300 offenders in two months. But only about 100 of those cited paid up, so the effort ended up costing more than it recouped.

In April 2019, BART decided to try and fight the fare evasion problem with more boots on the ground; BART police officers and fare inspectors began working extra hours and becoming a bigger visible presence near entrances and exits to deter would-be skippers. The Chronicle reports the effort was a success by at least some measures: ticket sales went up 10 percent and more riders added cash to their tickets and Clipper cards before exiting.

As for this latest attempt, early observations are promising, according to Tamar Allen, assistant general manager of BART operations. She said in a BART board meeting last week that the new fare gates have resulted in an approximately 55 to 60 percent reduction in fare evasion at Richmond Station.

"Based on our observations, and we're really paying close attention to this pilot, there's still some fare evasion at Richmond and we're doing some engineering work to figure out how we can tighten it up a little bit," said Allen.

The cost of the pilot program is $114,000. BART hasn't said if it intends to roll out the tall fare gates systemwide.

Alix Martichoux is an SFGate digital editor. Read her latest stories and send her news tips at alix.martichoux@sfgate.com.

Drew Costley is an SFGATE editorial assistant. Email: drew.costley@sfgate.com | Twitter: @drewcostley