Metro, DC Council at odds over fare evasion: Order to not write tickets now open-ended

WASHINGTON (FOX 5 DC) - Back in May, Metro’s police chief told all of his officers not to write tickets for fare evasion on buses and the subway. 

The reason being two-fold. There was no mechanism for paying or appealing the tickets, and the new law decriminalizing fare jumping in the District left officers with little power to even enforce the civil fine.

So for the last six months, the transit agency instructed its staff to simply count the number of riders refusing to pay.

On Tuesday, FOX 5 learned that practice will continue for some time to come. 

"It definitely impacts the morale of our officers," said Metro Transit Police Chief Ronald A. Pavlik, Jr. "There is no question about that. We tell them they are trained professionals and to handle things accordingly."

Metro says so far this fiscal year the transit agency is projected to lose $40 million or more in fare evasion, and officials called that a conservative estimate.

The worst of the fare evading that WMATA can quantify is taking place on 10 bus lines —  nine of them in the District.

The line with the worst abuse is the W-4, located in Southeast D.C. So far this fiscal year, 800,000 riders have refused to pay.

Two other lines — the 92 and X2 — each had 700,000 riders refusing to pay.

The P-12, which services neighborhoods along the D.C. and in Prince George’s County line, saw between 500,000 and 600,000 riders skipping the fare.

In the District, the bus drivers have been told not to challenge the fare evaders and instead count them.

Metro estimates that its revenue loss on the rail system is about $11 million.

"The fact of the matter is that since this has become decriminalized we have only seen those rates spike", said Metro spokesman Dan Stessel. “When DC Council decriminalized theft of service they intentionally omitted a requirement for the offender to provide their true name and address...without a penalty for (that), the citation is meaningless, and we are not going to put our officers in that position."

The D.C. City Council overwhelmingly approved the new law last year while the Mayor attempted to kill it with a veto.

Ward 6 Council Member Charles Allen who was a champion of the law says, “Late in the spring, I’d moved emergency legislation to ensure the appeals process is set up. The only thing that was pending, was for Office of Admin Hearings (OAH) to issue rules. And of course, despite a ticket, MTPD can refuse service if they see fare evasion. So saying there’s no ability to enforce is false. And then once more, criminalizing fare evasion doesn’t stop fare evasion. In fact, where WMATA reports big growth in fare evasion (Maryland) is where it is already a crime. Perhaps we should be looking at other solutions to this problem than trying to lock people up and give them lifelong criminal records over an inability to pay a $2 fare”.

FOX 5's Paul Wagner spoke with a representative from the Office of Administrative Hearings Tuesday and was told the process is in the infant stages and no process is in place or even close to being in place to accept fines for fare evasion or to have the tickets appealed.