To me, it is a matter of principle that people who ride the bus obey the posted rules: no loud music, no eating, wear a mask when so stated, no putting feet on the seat, turning off the cell phone speaker. Of course you always have the recalcitrant who thinks the rules don’t apply to them, or are simply too thoughtless or rude to even recognize that there are such rules, even when they are posted.
Take for example what happened other day on the Metro bus: I heard someone munching like a cow behind me, and when I turned around there was an Asian woman sitting in the seat behind me trying to conceal herself; she had no mask on and was eating sloppily out of a bowl of noodles. I informed her there was no eating on the bus and she was supposed to have a mask on. Instead of doing that she just took her business to another seat. Meanwhile, a black male who was also not wearing a mask informed me that it wasn’t any of my business if she was wearing a mask or not, to which I pointed out it was everyone’s business if there were people whose actions might cause other’s harm. He started making loud threats, and the driver called for “everyone” to stop making an issue out of it, because, he said, everyone can ride the bus regardless if they are obeying the rules or not.
The problem with this attitude is that it is contrary to the stated rule; in fact, the neon sign in the front of the bus explicitly states that a mask must be worn upon entry. Instead of enforcing the mask policy as they are supposed to, the drivers tend to be more interested in “keeping the peace” and allow people to do whatever they want to do. I know people who have contracted the Omicron variant, and it is like a really bad cold that leaves people physically weak for a week or two at best, and what long-term damage to the heart or brain is isn’t yet determined, so this isn’t some kind of “joke” that can be ignored.
The other problem was that this other person refused to keep quiet, this time giving his attention to the driver, which I think surprised the driver. This guy even went to the front of the bus and started to harangue the driver about having the audacity to even speak to him. The driver “offered” to let him off at the next stop, but when this person apparently believed he had sufficiently intimidated the driver he went back to his seat. Again, the issue here is enforcing the mask requirement, and allowing people to do whatever they want to do and creating an unsafe environment is what is causing problems.
Another issue is the paying of bus fare. When drivers “buy” the excuses of people who say they “lost” their transfer or only have “large bills,” those people tend to believe that fare enforcement is nonexistent and simply ignore the driver. On the bus I take home at night, there is some “new” passenger, a white male, who has been claiming every time that he doesn’t have his “senior pass” with him; I suspect he doesn’t have one because he isn’t old enough to qualify for one. I’m sure the driver has figured this out because this guy can’t be that stupid “forgetting” his pass every goddam day; he certainly was sufficiently aware that I wasn’t buying his load of bullshit, since he started making juvenile comments about my manhood that were more fitting for someone with the maturity level of something less than a “senior.”
Then the driver let on about eight people in the 20-30 age range at one stop, overlooking the fact that not one of them paid fare. Now I ask you, why should I pay fare for? I’m probably older than the guy who says he doesn’t have his “senior” pass. I suppose the driver just wants to be a “nice” guy. But I ask you: why should I pay fare if I’m probably only one of two or three who actually feels it is a passenger’s responsibility to actually pay their bus fare on that particular route?
Which of course leads to a question that I never thought needed to be asked: Is it “legal” to demand payment of fare at all? This issue, believe it or not, is currently before the Washington State Supreme Court. According to the Associated Press,
The Washington state Supreme Court will consider whether fare enforcement on public transit represents an unconstitutional incursion into passengers’ right to privacy. Lower courts have rejected the case brought by a man who was asked in 2018 by Snohomish County sheriff's deputies to prove he'd paid for his ride on a bus in Everett. The Seattle Times reports Zachery Meredith's lawyer argues that act of fare enforcement violated his civil rights under the state constitution. If Meredith’s case is successful, transit agencies could be stripped of the authority, granted by the state, to ask riders for evidence they’d tapped their ORCA cards or bought a ticket.
This case isn’t new; the Maryland Supreme Court ruled that a train rider’s Fourth Amendment right against “suspicionless” searches and seizures was “violated” during a “fare sweep.” This ruling was certainly bizarre on its face; everyone on a train expects someone to stop by and inspect their tickets, right? If this was not the case, how many people would feel they didn’t need to obey the rules and do their civic responsibility? Probably a lot more than you think, from what I can tell.
The AP notes that “fare collection remains a large part of transit agencies’ budgets, and if there is a shortfall, then it has to come from somewhere”—and if not from higher taxes, out of the pockets of the people who obey the rules and pay the fare. Just as drivers often threaten passengers on buses who obey the rules when they complain about those who don’t, it is passengers who actually pay the fare who are going to pay the “price.” Back in the early 1980s you could take one public fare bus from Seattle to Tacoma for 50 cents (or at least that was what I paid when I was stationed at Fort Lewis). Today no such bus exists, and just going inside the Seattle city limits costs $2.75 one-way. With a budget shortfall, one should expect a fare increase; not only are the ones most hurt by people who think they can get away with (and do) not paying fare are those who actually pay the fare as required, the drivers are in collusion with rule-breaking and fare increases when they don’t enforce the payment of fare.
According to the state argument, “Meredith had no reasonable right to privacy as a passenger. Anyone could have observed him boarding and riding the bus and no personal information is divulged in providing proof of payment. Officers engaging with individuals in public and asking for identification does not qualify as a seizure.” But no, you have the ACLU and anti-government organizations who choose to narrowly view this case as one about “searches and seizures” when it clearly is not about that all. It’s about obeying the rules and paying your goddam fare to keep public transit going. If you don’t want to pay your fare, get yourself a goddam car and pay for gas and insurance. Transportation is no “free lunch”—especially when those who do pay fare end up paying for some lazy bastard’s lunch too.
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