San Diego MTS rejects proposed crackdown on fare jumpers costing trolley system $1 million a month

By David Garrick | San Diego Union-Tribune (TNS)

SAN DIEGO — Local leaders clashed Thursday over how to close a loophole that San Diego Trolley officials say is costing them about $1 million a month by discouraging riders from paying fares.

A proposed crackdown on fare jumpers who use the loophole was rejected Thursday by the board of the Metropolitan Transit System, which operates the trolley system and a large fleet of public buses.

Several board members praised the proposed crackdown as a commonsense solution that would be especially crucial with MTS facing projected annual budget deficits of roughly $80 million per year.

But other members, particularly those representing low-income areas, called the proposal overly punitive and suggested alternative options should be explored.

The dispute comes at a time when local officials are trying to strengthen the transit system and boost ridership as the region becomes more densely populated.

The loophole is the unintended consequence of MTS switching to a new fare payment system in fall 2021, just over a year after the agency had created a fare-jumping forgiveness program in June 2020.

The fare-jumping forgiveness program allows riders who get caught by transit police when they don’t pay a fare to avoid any consequences if they immediately pay the $2.50 fare.

MTS officials say the program, which seeks to avoid saddling low-income people with hefty fines and reduced credit scores if they dodge those fines, could have been successful.

But when MTS switched its fare payment system from Compass to Pronto, many riders shifted away from $72 monthly and $6 daily passes to paying $2.50 for each trip.

That’s because the switch to Pronto came with a capping policy that eliminates the incentive to buy passes with up-front cash. Once you pay $6 in a day or $72 in a month, Pronto stops charging you for that day or month.

Because MTS only has enough transit police for riders to face enforcement roughly 5 percent of the time, many riders paying $2.50 per trip have begun to realize there is no incentive to pay a fare, officials said.

“If the worst consequence of being found without a fare upon inspection is that a passenger must buy that one-way fare, then there is no incentive for passengers to purchase a fare,” said Karen Landers, MTS general counsel.

“Many passengers appear to have discovered that they can game the system by only paying the 5 percent of the time they are inspected, and not paying the other 95 percent of the time,” she said.

Before the forgiveness program, MTS officials say, the trolley system’s fare evasion rate was about 3 percent. The fare evasion rate on buses is lower because there is a driver on each bus.

The trolley fare evasion rate rose to 22.47 percent in 2022, 29.13 percent in 2023 and has risen to 32.32 percent so far in 2024, Landers said.

Meanwhile, the number of average monthly riders forced to make immediate payments when caught by transit police has climbed from 25,421 in 2022 to 37,873 in 2023 and to 48,610 in 2024.

“It really seems to show that passengers, as they understand how Pronto works and how our fare enforcement works, are taking advantage of this,” Landers said.

The proposed crackdown would eliminate the ability to just pay the fare owed and force fare jumpers to pay a $25 fine. They could, however, complete three hours of community service instead.

MTS board members Alonso Gonzalez of the Chula Vista City Council, Steve Goble of the El Cajon City Council and Caylin Frank of the Poway City Council all expressed support for the proposal.

“We really have not been focused on doing everything we can to ensure actual trolley riders are paying their fares — already highly subsidized fares,” Frank said. “I’m not surprised riders were able to quickly figure out the loophole.”

Goble said the proposal could have been vetted better before it was presented to the board, but he added that the board owes it to taxpayers to fix obvious problems.

“I think the public is expecting us to not let loopholes exist in the system,” Goble said.

Vivian Moreno, who represents San Diego’s South Bay neighborhoods on the City Council, said $25 would be too high. She also expressed concerns about involving the courts, contending any fines should be handled as civil cases not criminal cases.

“The options seems too punitive,” she said. “It seems overkill to me.”

San Diego City Council President Sean Elo-Rivera, another board member, said the trolley’s fare system is going through too many changes to single out this one program.

“We are still working through the rollout of an entire overhaul of our boarding system for trolleys and how folks pay,” he said. “I understand there is a revenue issue. I understand we want folks to pay what they are supposed to pay. How we do that matters.”

County Supervisor Monica Montgomery Steppe, another board member, explained the initial motivations for the forgiveness program.

“We were hearing from people who were unsheltered and people who were homeless that trolley tickets were preventing them from renting a place,” she said. “I certainly didn’t want to be part of a perpetuated cycle of poverty when people are trying to do better for themselves.”

MTS officials estimated that riders will be asked for proof of fare payment about three times as often — 15 percent of the time instead of 5 percent of the time — when the agency completes its plans to hire three dozen more enforcement officers in coming months.

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