Boston University students are among those involved in complaints of fare evasion on the T, an issue the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority officials are cracking down on as the number of citations increased by 59 percent over the last 12 months.
Robert Lenehan, deputy chief of the MBTA Transit Police, said that as of Sep. 26, 3,614 citations had been issued in the last 12 months, marking an increase from 2,268 citations issued in the past year.
“We’re not sure if it’s just the tip of the iceberg here,” he said. “But we’re doing what we can to keep people from getting away with skipping out on their fares.”
As of Tuesday, the MBTA Transit Police issued 121 fare evasion citations throughout the past week, according to their Twitter feed.
This sharp increase is due to a targeted enforcement on the part of the MBTA, he said.
Lenehan said the MBTA has made a concerted effort in the past year to significantly reduce the citywide issue of fare evasion by assigning more of their patrol units to monitor for offenders.
Undercover transit police are placed at all entry points of various stations to catch all incoming offenders, he said, and target areas are created based on the frequency of complaints — some of which involved BU students.
The MBTA has also created a twitter account, @MBTATransitPD, that tweets fare evasion citation numbers, among other statistics.
Lenehan said the crackdown acts as a crime prevention tool as citation for fare evasion often leads to discovery of a preexisting warrant for another crime.
“Small crimes have an impact on big crime,” Lenehan said. “The idea is that if we stop people at the point of entry and get them on something small, in the process we’re preventing something major from happening.”
The original Massachusetts law set the fee for a first offense of fare evasion at $10, and the maximum fine of $250.
But the new law updated on June 29 warrants a fine of $50 for the first offense, allowing multiple offenders to pay may a maximum of $500 for fare evasion.
In meetings over the last year with the public, people frequently raised concerns on fare-collection procedures, said MBTA spokesman Joe Pesaturo in an email.
Pesaturo said many customers have asked the T to tighten up fare-collection procedures.
“This was a concern we heard over and over again at this year’s 31 public meetings at which people commented on the T’s fare increase and service cut proposals,” he said.
The message from these meetings was clear, he said.
“If the T is going to raise fares, it must make every effort to collect them,” he said. “These efforts include stepped-up enforcement by Transit Police and T personnel, and new programs such as the ‘front-door only’ boarding policy on the Green Line.”
T riders such as Northeastern University Jared Carter said they were not as content with the crackdown, lamenting the loss of the days of the all-door entrance.
“It is too bad you can’t catch a free ride anymore,” Carter said. “But beyond that, the front-door only entry and exit is a mess — it causes such a delay, and it’s just not a very workable solution to the problem.”
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