Fare evasion on New York City’s subways and buses continues to decline as the nation’s largest transit agency seeks to get more riders to pay for service.
About 9.8% of subway riders skipped the fee in the first quarter of 2025, down from 13.6% in the same period of 2024, according to the latest Metropolitan Transportation Authority data.
The MTA, which runs the city’s transit network, estimates that fare evasion cost the agency as much as $800 million last year. Along with that lost revenue, riders jumping turnstiles and boarding buses without paying weakens customer confidence in the system.
“Fare evasion is an existential issue not just because of the money, although it’s a huge impact, but also because it goes fundamentally against the sense of community and morale and fairness,” Janno Lieber, the MTA’s chief executive officer, said Monday during a committee meeting at the agency’s headquarters.
Curbing fare evasion on buses, where the custom is more rampant, has been slower going, though there are still signs of progress. About 44% of riders skipped the fare in January through March, down from 44.9% at the end of 2024, according to MTA data. The practice peaked in June when nearly half of riders failed to pay.
Fare evasion began to decrease in the second half of last year after the MTA focused on placing more gate guards at subway turnstiles and reconfiguring those structures to prevent jumping or manipulating turnstiles. The MTA also plans to add modern fare gates that protect against fare evasion in 20 different subway stations later this year. The MTA’s 2025 to 2029 capital budget includes $1 billion for new fare gates.
Unarmed security detail, called Eagle Teams, ride buses to identify customers who skipped paying the fee and work with New York City Police Department officers to issue summons. The Eagle Teams operate at about 140 locations, taking 1,500 bus trips daily, Demetrius Crichlow, head of MTA’s subways and buses, said during the meeting.
“It is without question, a visible deployment designed to get people’s attention,” Crichlow said about the work of the Eagle Teams.
