A D.C. bill would close a fare evasion loophole that Metro has been asking for.

WAMU/DCist / Jordan Pascale

A new bill from D.C. Councilmember Brooke Pinto aims to close a loophole in the District’s fare evasion law. Metro says the law, as it is now, ties its hands in catching people with warrants, weapons, and those who break the law on trains and buses.

Currently, people stopped for fare evasion are subject to a $50 civil fine. The council decriminalized the offense in 2018, a move that aimed to reduce the racial disparity and keep people out of the criminal justice system for such a low-level offense. More than 90 percent of tickets were given to Black people, according to a 2018 analysis.

But there is no enforcement mechanism to require alleged evaders to provide their name and address to officials.

“We must equip law enforcement with the tools they need to keep riders safe,” Pinto wrote in a letter explaining her bill, the Metro Safety Amendment Act of 2023.

The bill would create an enforcement mechanism, Pinto says: If someone fare evades, they can be stopped by law enforcement and if they refuse to provide their true name and address, they can be detained and subject to a fine of up to $100.

At an April Metro board meeting, Metro General Manager Randy Clarke lamented the loophole: “The police ask for identification, but someone could, in theory, say, ‘I’m Donald Duck’ and right now the police have no ability to actually enforce that piece.”

The matter has also troubled members of the Metropolitan Transit Police Department. For a long time, they didn’t write many tickets in D.C. because there was no mechanism in place to do so, despite it being home to 80% of fare evasion cases, according to Metro.

“If you know the law, you can walk right past us and we can’t forcibly stop you,” Metro Transit Police Chief Michael Anzallo said at the April meeting. “Where in Maryland and Virginia… the citizen has to cooperate with the police officer in writing the citation.”

Police say in Maryland and Virginia, they can stop people who’ve evaded fares and verify identities. In doing so, they’ve found people with outstanding warrants and other offenses like illegal weapons. Metro pointed to a recent incident in Virginia, where a man was arrested for fare evasion after not complying with the citation and identification check. But he was also carrying two handguns and brass knuckles, leading to further charges.

Metro is tying the decriminalization of fare evasion directly to a rise in serious crimes in the system.

“Crime data shows that when we increase fare enforcement, our Part I crime number is lower, and when we decrease enforcement, Part I crime increases,” Clarke said in a letter supporting Pinto’s bill. Part 1 crimes include things like assault, robbery, and theft. “The vast majority of persons who commit criminal acts within Metro fare evade.”

He said passing the bill would correct “this technical issue which impacts our shared goal of providing the safest system for our community.”

In 2018, the council tried to make the offense more comparable to a parking ticket than a criminal offense.

“There’s no world in which if you don’t drop a quarter in the parking meter, you walk away in handcuffs,” Councilmember Charles Allen said back in 2018.

Pinto said the change created unintentional consequences.

“The Council’s intention here was not to make fare evasion legal, but to ensure that people are not embroiled in the criminal-legal system for what amounted to a low dollar offense,” Pinto wrote. “However, without a true enforcement mechanism for the civil offense, the effect has been a lack of consequences for fare evasion. This has had a tangible impact on WMATA operations.”

Metro says the stolen fares cost them $40 million annually, and is one of customers’ top complaints about the transit system, according to surveys. Supporters of decriminalization say criminal charges for fare evasion is punishing poverty. In response, Metro created a low-income fare program that would provide half-off fares to those enrolled in SNAP benefits. It launches June 20.

In November, WMATA started a number of initiatives to crack down on the problem, including more police patrols, an education campaign, and testing harder-to-jump turnstiles, which will roll out across the entire system by the end of next fall. Metro issued nearly 1,300 fare evasion tickets in 2023.

Pinto is also encouraging better administration of the Kids Ride Free program, which gives K-12 students free Metro rides. Often kids jump faregates because they lost or don’t have their card.

Pinto chairs the Judiciary and Public Safety Public Committee, so the bill will get a hearing, but it’s unclear how much support it has in the rest of the council. The bill has two co-sponsors so far, Chairman Phil Mendelson and Ward 7 Councilmember Vincent Gray.

This story was updated to reflect that the law doesn’t require showing an I.D., but does require giving a true name and address.

Filed Under: criminal justice, D.C. Councilmember Brooke Pinto, Metro fare evasion, metro fare gates, transportation,