Hochul has yet another chance at redemption by solving NYC’s fare-beating crisis

The broken-windows theory of social disorder holds that minor problems that go unaddressed will grow into major problems.

The namesake example argues that a vacant building with a single broken window will soon have many broken windows as well as other problems and become a dangerous neighborhood blight.

That’s the idea, and now comes the latest example of real-life proof.

This one involves riders refusing to pay the fare on New York City buses.

A mind-boggling 48% of all bus passengers are guilty of fare-beating, costing the MTA hundreds of millions of dollars a year, the agency says.

True to the theory, the number of cheaters didn’t make the leap in one year.

It started as a manageable problem but grew quickly because nothing was done to stop it.

The evasion figure stood at 18% of riders in 2018, grew to 33% in May 2023 and then hit 41% last December.

Now nearly one out of every two riders doesn’t pay.

Subway fare evasion, which is more difficult because of turnstiles, stands at a reported 14%, still high by international standards.

Worse, the rate of growth will continue to explode as more and more honest riders see that there is no penalty for not paying, leading many of them to join the cheaters.

As the broken-windows theory long ago proved, the lack of consequences serves as an invitation for more trouble.

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The financial losses already are astronomical.

Bus cheaters cost the MTA $312 million in 2022 alone, and the agency’s total loss from bus and subway fare evasion in 2023 was some $700 million.

Eventually, nobody will pay — except taxpayers.

The MTA, Albany and City Hall bemoan the problem but have done next to nothing to stop it.

They’ve tried a few half-hearted measures, but nothing that would actually stem the tide.

The latest effort involves unarmed “fare inspectors” who can ask cheaters to get off a bus or issue a ticket for up to $100.

But there are only about 100 of them on the job, The Post reports, showing how unserious the agency is about fixing the massive problem.

In fact, the measure is typical of the government’s eagerness to go woke, even when it means going broke.

As The New York Times reports, in 2017, then-Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance Jr. stopped treating subway turnstile jumpers as a criminal matter.

His office said it was part of a plan “to reduce inequality and unnecessary incarceration by ending the prosecution of low-level, non-violent offenses.”

Other prosecutors soon followed, and the COVID outbreak, along with the George Floyd riots, started a chain reaction of lawlessness that continues.

It’s been fueled by pro-criminal, far-left legislators and so-called prosecutors who flash the green light to all sorts of violations by downgrading or eliminating penalties.

A glaring illustration is that Alvin Bragg , Vance’s successor, has taken his example of avoiding criminal penalties for fare-beating and extended it to other areas.

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One result of the decriminalization movement, which is a twin sickness of defunding the police, is the explosion of shoplifting, which is causing retail store closures, large job losses and neighborhood decline.

Albany even tied judges’ hands, with Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie suggesting too many judges are racists and their decisions about which criminal suspects to detain can’t be trusted.

His ultimate aim seems to be to turn ’em all loose.

Yet this being New York, nothing is so bad that it can’t be made worse.

And so it is with the political response to fare-beating, which is revealing the cynicism and cowardice of the ruling class.

Enter congestion pricing, which was advertised as a supposed social good but was also a backdoor way to finance the MTA as the fare-beating losses soared.

Instead of using their power to penalize the thieves in ways that would act as a deterrent, Gov. Hochul , Mayor Adams and lawmakers in Albany and City Hall want to cover the deficit by taxing commuters and trucks, with plans calling for the agency to reap about $1 billion a year.

Auto drivers would be penalized $15 a day for daring to drive into Manhattan south of 60th Street, while service and delivery trucks would pay as much as $36.

Hochul suddenly “paused” the plan weeks before the scheduled June 30 start date, but has done nothing to remove the suspicion that she acted simply to protect Democrats in this year’s elections.

Her move came soon after a visit to the White House and a reported conversation with Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, a Brooklyn resident and House minority leader who wants to be speaker.

He called her decision “reasonable,” reflecting how unpopular congestion pricing is, especially in the suburbs, and how putting it into effect could keep the House in GOP hands.

Hochul’s belated argument — that the tax would unfairly sock workers — was always true and will remain so.

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Ditto for her statement that $15 was too high.

With signs that the economy is softening and with unemployment rising, now is an especially rotten time to increase the already sky-high cost of living and working in New York.

Fortunately, there is an alternative that is not only more sensible, but also more just.

As the cost of fare-beating approaches a total similar to what congestion pricing would supposedly yield, Hochul gets a second chance to head off a big mistake.

She should mobilize the MTA and get Adams to have the NYPD make a priority of arresting fare cheats.

And she should lean on Dem prosecutors and judges to put teeth into the cases.

There is also a matter of fairness in fixing street congestion in ways that don’t penalize those who must or want to drive into Manhattan.

Anti-car zealots have been running the city’s Department of Transportation for two decades and have mucked up streets with every imaginable barrier to make driving difficult.

Pedestrian plazas, bicycle lanes, restaurant sheds, pedicabs and bike-share stations have all been given priority, forcing traffic on many streets into single lanes.

An epidemic of double-parking by delivery trucks, even during rush hours, is viewed more as a source of ticket revenue for the city than a cause of congestion.

The point is that traffic snarls can be reduced without penalizing innocent drivers and the MTA’s budget can be boosted by cracking down on the real source of its money woes — fare-beaters.

Both measures are not only right, they would also be popular.

But the clock is ticking, and if Hochul doesn’t permanently kill the congestion tax before the election, it means she intends to lift her pause and restore it afterwards, when voters can’t punish her party.

On the other hand, if she eliminates the tax before November, voters will know she is acting in good faith.

Moreover, she will have demonstrated that good policy can also be good politics.

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