We’ve all heard about the “fiscal cliff” BART is headed towards. The system is asking the State for hundreds of millions to avert cutting entire lines. At the same time, BART officials admit they’re losing at least $25 million a year to fare jumpers. But what is the system doing about that?
Anyone who uses BART regularly knows how rampant fare jumping is. Just yesterday I was entering at 19th Street when I saw a young white skateboard kid, with a large German shepherd, hoist himself over the gate. “Hey,” I said to him, “you forgot to pay.” He gave me a dirty look and said, “I didn’t forget.” In other words, his action was intentional. There were three BART workers standing around the glass booth who had seen the whole thing. “He didn’t pay!” I shouted, pointing to the kid. One of the BART workers shrugged. “We’re not allowed to get involved." (Yes, I’m afraid I’ve become a male Karen!)
No wonder people are upset. Why is BART asking us for money when for years they’ve allowed this blatant fare theft to remain unchallenged? Well, it turns out that BART does have a plan: they just hired a Virginia firm to oversee installing supposedly cheat-proof tall, clear-plastic swinging doors instead of the easily-jumped gates now in use. This “station hardening,” which could cost up to $90 million, is set to be completed at every station by 2026, with West Oakland station scheduled to receive the first later this year.
Station hardening, however, is only one way of dealing with fare jumping. The other is patrols. For years BART had a fare enforcement system in which unarmed civilian inspectors were hired, at a cost of $800,000 a year, to crack down on fare scofflaws and issue them citations. The program was a disaster; BART cited 1,300 fare evaders in a two-month period, but only 100 paid the fine ($75 for adults, $55 for juveniles). Five years ago, BART issued a report detailing the racial breakdown of people cited for fare evasion: “Of the 3,813 citations issued from March to the end of August, 47 percent went to black riders, 18 percent to whites, 15 percent to Latinos, 4 percent to Asians and 0.1 percent to American Indians.” This disparity led many progressives to complain that there had to be inherent bias on the part of the inspectors to account for those numbers. “I don’t understand how these numbers are so egregious,” [BART Board directer Lateefah] Simon said, noting that BART had supplied raw statistics without a substantive analysis to prove a lack of racial bias. Simon ended up voting against a proposal to expand the inspection system. “I cannot support the expansion of a program that seems to have a devastating racial impact,” said Simon (who’s running for the U.S. Congress seat currently held by Barbara Lee).
We’ve been down this road before: Black people commit more than their fair share of a crime, and then when they’re busted for it, progressives complain that “structural racism” is why so many Black people are arrested. You’d think that by now this threadbare excuse would evoke howls of derision from the public, but instead it’s front-page news at outlets like the San Francisco Chronicle, which quotes any so-called “civil rights” proponent who’s outraged by the disparity numbers.
So arch has been this response from woke progressives that, just a month ago, BART agreed to pay for “a major study to find out if their policing tactics are racially motivated,” with “the specific focus [being on] the department's response to fare evasion.” Look, I can save BART a lot of money with this simple advice: Don’t waste your time. If the study is honest, it will conclude what we all know: Black riders jump fare gates a lot. If the study is dishonest (as so many are), it will charge patrol officers with racism. This is the same way things work with respect to car stops by cops and with so many arrests: Black people commit these crimes, they’re busted, somebody crunches the numbers and points out that Blacks are stopped (or arrested) far more than their racial counterparts even though they’re a much smaller percent of the population, and all the local wokes go bananas. More proof of structural racism! We’ve got to purge the ranks of these prejudiced racists!
I don’t have much faith in this new “study.” The group BART retained for it is the Center for Policing Equity (the name itself should be a warning of its political inclination). Their vice-president, a gentleman called Hans Menos, explained, “We know that there is enough of a problem to warrant further and deeper investigation…What we are talking about here is oppression and mistreatment of black and brown people nationwide. And BART is just one example of how we want to uncover that.”
Well, there it is: the verdict has been reached, the perpetrator identified, the jury has decided. The study hasn’t even started yet, but those conducting it already know what they will find: Racism. If you’re shocked and outraged, don’t bother complaining; the grift is on. Wokes have infiltrated deeply into every crevice of our system. No matter how deep you go, you’ll find progressives apologizing for bad Black behavior and blaming the victims for the crime.
Steve Heimoff