It’s business as usual for BART gate jumpers
BART ridership has plummeted by more than 93 percent since the stayathome order was issued, and that has led to shorter service hours, longer waits between trains and nearempty stations. What hasn’t changed? The fare evaders riding the system for free.
Three weeks into the Bay Area shutdown, and BART’s two morning sweeps at San Francisco’s Embarcadero Station were pulling an average of 238 fare evaders a day off the morningcommute
trains. Many of those ejected for not having a ticket were homeless or apparently mentally ill, BART officials said.
“And some are riding the system all day as a shelter,” said BART Police Chief Ed Alvarez.
BART had 24,909 riders on Monday, far below the 405,000 average daily ridership before the ninecounty order went out for nonessential Bay Area workers to stay at home.
“You might have thought that a 93% reduction in riders would have meant a reduction in fare evaders as well, but that hasn’t been the case,” BART Director Debora Allen said. She added that the people who jump the gates aren’t just cheats, they are potential health hazards to other riders and to themselves.
“We are carrying essential workers to their jobs,” Allen said. “We must work harder to keep the bad actors out to protect our BART and other essential workers.”
Marie Smith is one of those essential workers who ride BART daily.
“Sometimes it feels safe, but sometimes it feels iffy,” said Smith, who was wearing a mask as she rode the train from San Francisco to her job as a social worker in Richmond.
Feeling “iffy” was the reason Smith said she changed cars at Montgomery Street Station.
“People were coughing on the first car I got on,” she said.
Without the usual crush of morning commuters, the gate jumpers riding the trains are even more apparent — and at times jarring.
“Just the other morning, myself and three other officers got on a train at Lake Merritt in Oakland,” BART Police Officer Keith Garcia said. “No sooner did we get on board than we were immediately confronted by a guy in a hospital gown and slippers who was running up and down the train screaming.
“We had all had contact with him before. We know that he is a crackhead and usually harmless,” Garcia said.
Of course, passengers unfamiliar with him would have no idea the guy was usually harmless.
The man didn’t have a ticket, so Garcia and other officers escorted him off the train at Embarcadero Station.
Garcia, who is also president of the BART Police Officers Association, said all the officers were wearing gloves.
“For me it was at least reassuring that he appeared to have just been released from the hospital, so I figured he was likely not to be positive for the virus,” Garcia said.
In the early days of the health alert, Allen suggested BART consider issuing badges to identify essential workers who use the transit system.
“The logistics of contacting all the employers made it impossible,” Allen said. “The only way to legally do something is to enforce fare evasion.”
And while BART police said calls about bad behavior have dropped in recent weeks, in part because there are fewer riders to report them, they’re not letting up.
“It is still very important that we are still putting our foot to the gas,” Alvarez said “We have to protect our system and our riders.”
But that’s not easy during a pandemic.
This week, BART suspended the fareevasion sweeps on the trains, in part out of concerns for the health of police officers and the civilian fareevasion officers.
“We are having to retool a bit,” Alvarez said.
Going forward, police officers, ticket enforcement inspectors and civilian community service officers, who usually patrol BART’s parking lots, will be stationed at fare gates of various downtown stations.
“If someone tries to jump, we’ll see them coming,” Alvarez said. At least, that’s the plan. To date, no BART police officer or civilian fare inspector has tested positive for the coronavirus.
But six of BART’s 18 civilian fareevasion officers have applied for the two weeks’ paid family leave granted to workers with children under 18 under the justpassed federal Families First Coronavirus Response Act.
San Francisco Chronicle columnist Phil Matier appears Sundays and Wednesdays. Matier can be seen on the KGOTV morning and evening news and can also be heard on KCBS radio Monday through Friday at 7:50 a.m. and 5:50 p.m. Got a tip? Call 4157778815, or email pmatier@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @philmatier