Eveline

Swindlers

Fare beaters are back, but now they're middleaged

Back when I moved to NYC in 1983 there were farebeaters, but they were all young. Turnstile jumpers mostly. But it's largely become a thing you don't see so frequently. Until yesterday afternoon: on the M15 down 2nd Ave, 3 separate farebeaters got on the bus through the rear doors of the flexible bus. They ranged in age from about 35 to 55.

I'm presuming that they were fare beaters back then who were laid low by the Giuliani regime, who are being pushed by economic necessity into cheating. I don't view this as "beating the MTA/system", either, but swindling their fellow New Yorkers who have to make up for the lost fares with higher fares for the people who do pay.

The bus driver's sarcasm was also pre-Disneyfied NYC. "And what do you want me to do about it? Take the bus out of service?" was what the driver said when I told him.

Second Avenue, bet. 34th & 14th