{"id":85299,"date":"2025-07-23T07:04:23","date_gmt":"2025-07-23T07:04:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/85299\/"},"modified":"2025-07-23T07:04:23","modified_gmt":"2025-07-23T07:04:23","slug":"brooklyn-subway-station-is-plagued-by-continued-fare-evasion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/85299\/","title":{"rendered":"Brooklyn subway station is plagued by continued fare evasion"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\"person\t\t\t<\/p>\n

A commuter jumps a turnstile in a Brooklyn subway station. <\/p>\n

Photo by Barbara Russo-Lennon<\/p>\n

A Brooklyn subway station is a hotspot for fare evasion<\/a> as the MTA<\/a> continues its fight to stop the money-losing scourge throughout the city.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Commuters tipped off amNewYork to rampant fare evasion at the Metropolitan Avenue\/Lorimer Street station in Williamsburg, home to the G and L trains. During our visit to the station on a quiet afternoon on July 21, a reporter witnessed no fewer than four people hopping the turnstiles within 30 minutes.<\/p>\n

Two fare evaders even jumped over the turnstile at the station\u2019s Union Street and Metropolitan Avenue entrance, where there was a station agent on duty not far away.<\/p>\n

One man looked both ways, braced himself and then smoothly jumped the arm of the turnstile before politely asking other commuters, \u201cWant me to open the door for you?\u201d<\/p>\n

They did not accept the offer.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\u201cThis happens all the time. It\u2019s citywide,\u201d the agent said while describing how many commuters get a free ride.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

Free rides via fare evasion disgusts commuter
\n\"personA commuter jumps over a turnstile at a subway station in Brooklyn.Photo by Barbara Russo-Lennon<\/p>\n

Roz Haddock, who lives in the area, said people often use the emergency door to evade the fare at the Williamsburg hub.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can count on one hand how many people pay,\u201d Haddock said. \u201cI\u2019m disgusted with what goes on with mass transit.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

The Metropolitan Avenue\/Lorimer Street station is amNewYork\u2019s latest look into the city\u2019s fare evasion issue.\n<\/p>\n

The Metropolitan Avenue G train station falls under the purview of NYPD Transit District 30, while the Lorimer Street stop on the L line is within the confines of NYPD Transit District 33.\n<\/p>\n

According to the NYPD, Transit District 30 reported 185 fare evasion arrests and 1,846 fare evasion summonses in the first quarter of 2025; Transit District 33, meanwhile, saw 579 arrests and 2,677 summonses for fare evasion during the same period. Station-by-station statistics were not immediately available.\u00a0<\/p>\n

During visits this year to the\u00a042nd Street-Grand Central Terminal and Woodside\u2019s 61st Street station<\/a> where the 7 train stops, many commuters were seen dodging the $2.90 fare using various techniques, including crawling underneath or jumping over the turnstile, squeezing into it two at a time and sneaking in through the emergency doors.\u00a0<\/p>\n

City, fare evasion remains a major problem that costs the MTA around $800 million a year.\u00a0But the agency has not sat idly by and let the illegal activity continue without a fight. Officials have taken aggressive action to stop the behavior, including surging additional police officers into the system in recent years.<\/p>\n

One way they have done that is by deploying unarmed gate guards at select stations throughout the city. Fare beating has even dropped by 36% at stations with guards, the agency told amNewYork.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"theThe Lorimer Street subway station in Brooklyn, where fare evasion often occurs.Photo by Barbara Russo-Lennon<\/p>\n

Some station turnstiles have been redesigned with sleeves and barriers to make jumping them more difficult. At these stations, the agency reported a 60% drop in turnstile hopping.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Enforcement is ramping up, too. According to the MTA<\/a>, the NYPD made over 6,500 arrests related to fare evasion this year through May, which is an 85% increase from the same period in 2024.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, amNewYork\u2019s visit to Lorimer Street came on the same day the MTA celebrated the best summer week since 2019, as four million subway riders rode the trains three days in a row from July 15 to 17.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A commuter jumps a turnstile in a Brooklyn subway station. Photo by Barbara Russo-Lennon A Brooklyn subway station…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":85300,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,1121,57655,9904,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,24672,57656,11900,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-85299","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-brooklyn","10":"tag-fare-evasion-on-subways-in-nyc","11":"tag-mta","12":"tag-new-york","13":"tag-new-york-city","14":"tag-newyork","15":"tag-newyorkcity","16":"tag-ny","17":"tag-nyc","18":"tag-pm-newsletter","19":"tag-subway-stations","20":"tag-transit","21":"tag-united-states","22":"tag-united-states-of-america","23":"tag-unitedstates","24":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","25":"tag-us","26":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114901278282410062","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85299"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85299\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/85300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}