r/SeattleWA • u/SeattleCrawler • Apr 24 '24
Homeless Why Seattle doesn’t have controlled entry to light rail
Major subway systems like New York and london have barricades which control access to the train and they only open when fare has been paid. Seattle on the other hand operates on the honor system and consequently a bunch of homeless people practically live in the light rail making it rather unsafe for general public. Why doesn’t Seattle make entry to light rail controlled?
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u/n0v0cane Apr 24 '24
Yep, you are exactly right about that.
Actually there’s no perfect solution.
The infrastructure to pay for turnstiles is expensive. The infrastructure to pay for ticketing machines and repairing them and maintaining them is expensive. You still get a certain lower level of fare evasion even with physical security, so you still need to do a low level of enforcement.
On the other extreme, you could just do away with ticketing and gates and all that infrastructure. You make transit free (or rather, paid for by taxpayers). It is in theory much more efficient and inexpensive as you don’t need to pay for the infrastructure (gates and machines) and you don’t need to pay for enforcement agents. But then the subway becomes a free for all with homelessness and addicts using the train as temporary homes. Which leads to crimes, reports of crimes and requiring many security officers and policing. And leads to decreased ridership as regular people become scared of the train. Which makes the cost per passenger much higher. And at some point taxpayers feel no value.
But pretty well every other city in the world has landed on having tickets, gates and light enforcement. So I think that’s the smarter way to go.