The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) has installed more secure, retrofitted faregates to deter fare evasion at all 98 stations across its Metrorail system. The agency has seen an 82 percent drop in fare evasion in the Metrorail system.
More than 1,200 five-foot-tall gates and taller fences have been installed across all stations. The project began in July 2023.
WMATA leadership and police were present at Judiciary Square, the last station to get the retrofitted gates, to thank crews for their work.
“We have seen incredible results from the taller faregates,” said WMATA General Manager Randy Clarke. “We are never going to completely stop fare evasion, but these go a long way in addressing the problem.”
WMATA has also recently completed the installation of new fareboxes across all 1,500 of its buses. Customers often could not pay on buses because of farebox malfunctions. Metro Transit Police regularly patrol bus loops and individual bus routes to enforce payment.
Fare evasion increased to record levels during the pandemic, leading to a loss of $40 million of fare revenue a year. Metro relies on those fares to help keep buses, trains and MetroAccess services running. Fare evasion is one of customers’ biggest concerns, according to WMATA surveys. Customers said it made them feel unsafe and that it was unfair to those who paid fares.
“Tackling fare evasion has been one of the board of directors top priorities,” said WMATA Board Finance and Capital Committee Chair Matt Letourneau. “Not only does fare evasion cost us badly needed revenue, it is fundamentally unfair to all our customers who pay their hard-earned money. By cracking down on fare evasion through new faregates and better enforcement, we’ve also been able to make our system safer by deterring those with bad intentions from riding. The board appreciates the hard work of staff to address this issue and improve our system.”
So far this year, WMATA Metro Transit Police Department (MTPD) has arrested more than 250 individuals stopped for fare evading and found to have open warrants. Police have also recovered 16 guns.
MTPD continues to patrol stations for fare evasion and have written more than 10,000 fare evasion citations so far this year. That’s nearly three times the number of tickets written through the same period last year and 2,000 more citations than all of 2019. Revenue from the tickets goes to the local governments.
