All is FARE in love and war.

Here is the headline in today’s’ front pages on the San Francisco Chronicle:

No fare: cheats on Muni
Passengers who don't pay are costing the S.F. transit agency millions Muni losing millions as freeloaders catch a ride


To them I say – duh! The way Muni collects their fares is very similar to placing Halloween candy on your door step with a sign that says ‘please take 1’. I just recently started taking San Francisco mass transit more than ever. I am utterly amazed on how it works. As far as I can tell I pay for my ticket – walk on the MUNI or CalTrain – and yet nobody ever asks to see my ticket or proof of payment. Every once in a blue moon a conductor will walk through the Caltrain asking for tickets. I guess it’s this fear of getting busted that drives me to get a ticket every train ride. I now get a 10 ride pass and validate it each time before I board the train. I say 1 out of 10 rides a conductor asks to see proof of payment. Being a native New Yorker I used to take the L.I double R. (Long island Rail Road) into the city. While reading my paper or book –I would hear the train car door open and the conductor yell “tickets – let’s see them tickets’. Then he/she would take out a hole punch and punch all tickets and then place my ticket in the back of my seat. I would say in a 40 minute ride I would see the conductor at least twice. I am guessing he made his rounds based on some sort of zone system. I figure that this is rocket science to the Caltrain people. Their theory is – let’s not check for tickets and see how much money we make. Good plan.

So the whole bay area mass transit system is a bit disjointed. You have Caltrain – which is a straight shot from San Jose to San Francisco, making stops along the way. BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) goes from the Airport to San Francisco to the East Bay (pretty much a straight line - -though it does branch off in the east bay) (Also - - please note – I can write a whole book on why I hate BART and their issues). The one thing BART does right is ticket collection. I pay for my pass – slide it through the turnstile – turn stile opens – I walk through. And then there is Muni. Muni consists of:

55 bus lines (several using articulated buses);
16 trolley bus lines (several using articulated buses)
5 light rail lines. These lines, collectively known as Muni Metro, run articulated light rail vehicles. The lines include underground, grade-separated, and street-running portions
3 cable car lines; see article San Francisco cable car system
1 streetcar line (using heritage streetcars) known as the F Market

The light rail is really the subject of the Chronicle article. All the others, I think, have significant fare collection practices. So the light rail can be anywhere from a 1 to 5 car mini-train. Depending on where the station is – sometimes there is a fare machine – sometimes there isn’t. Sometimes there is a guy at your station during peak hours – sometimes there isn’t. And other times you can buy a pass on the first car. But all in all there are no checks and balances to the proof of purchase. Once in a while a transit officer walks through the train asking to see proof of payment.

It seems to me that the only way MUNI makes money is by wishing for the best. It is my wish that MUNI finds an answer to their problem. Maybe like making all riders enter from the first car – and the conductor checking passes or collecting money like the bus. But that is crazy. I wish MUNI well. But unless they change their way– they’ll lose – and wonder where all their Halloween candy went. And who does this hurt the most? Me - the honest. (please note – one day I didn’t have any money on me and I was late for work – I bored the MUNI and prayed to all that is holy that I would not get caught. I didn’t)