1 in 5 Bus Riders in New York City Evades the Fare, Far Worse Than Elsewhere

For bus drivers, striking the right balance between enforcing the rules and avoiding conflict with riders is difficult and, sometimes, dangerous. In 2008, a bus driver was stabbed to death by a rider who did not pay his fare — the first slaying of a city bus driver in more than 27 years. In response, the authority offered classes to drivers on defusing tense situations and added plastic partitions between drivers and passengers.

When a passenger refuses to pay, transit officials say the bus driver should politely say the price. If that does not work, bus drivers are told to press the F5 button and continue boarding other passengers.

Luis, the Queens bus driver, said safety was always on his mind. “What if I said, ‘Hey, you’ve got to pay.’ You don’t know if he’s armed with a knife or gun. I have this,” he said, pointing to his partition. “But this isn’t going to stop a bullet or someone from reaching over.”

Fare evasion has been far less of a problem on the city’s Select Bus Service routes — faster buses that account for 13 percent of bus ridership, where customers pay before boarding. The fare evasion rate on those buses is only 2.5 percent, a figure that is low partly because M.T.A. employees, known as “eagle teams,” patrol buses to ticket riders who do not pay. The agency is testing using the teams on regular buses.

Some transit advocates question the M.T.A. statistics and say officials are inflating the problem. The figures are based on observations along 140 of the 317 city bus routes that are extrapolated for the entire system. The agency does not even use the tally from bus drivers pressing the F5 button — that figure is used only to identify “hot spots” for fare evasion.

Back on the Q65 bus in Queens, Marty Ross admitted that he once skipped the fare because he forgot his MetroCard and did not have enough change.

“It happens to everyone,” said Mr. Ross, 68, of the Bronx. “Not everyone can pay every day.”

But another rider, Kevin Molina, a 23-year-old landscaper, said fare beaters hurt paying riders.

“I’ve never done it,” he said. “I pay my fair share. Those who don’t pay make the prices go up for the rest of us.”