BART’s top official is pushing back against a civil grand jury report that said the transit system’s fare evasion rate is three times the official estimate — saying 5% of riders cheat fares, not 15% as the report stated.
“At this point, we must clarify that BART has never estimated its fare evasion rate as 15 percent, as noted on page 129 of the report,” General Manager Grace Crunican wrote in a letter sent Monday to the foreperson of the Alameda County civil grand jury.
“Although fare evasion is challenging for transit operators to measure, prior BART analysis has estimated our fare evasion at around $15 million to $25 million annually, which translates to about a 5 percent rate,” Crunican wrote.
The grand jury said in its report that a senior manager at BART had pegged the fare evasion rate significantly higher, at 15%. However, the report also noted that the transit agency anticipates losses of up to $25 million a year.
Anne Whittington, a member of the grand jury, said that she and her peers had no reason to doubt either number.
“We got (those numbers) through testimony from someone who was senior at BART,” she said. The grand jury is required by law to conceal the identity of witnesses.
The Chronicle obtained a copy of Crunican’s letter on Tuesday. The agency did not comment on the fare evasion number in the grand jury report when contacted on Monday.
BART has a complicated methodology to calculate its fare evasion rate, which requires it to analyze entry and exit data and to estimate how many people are hopping through turnstiles and sneaking in through elevators.
The agency estimates that between 3% and 6% of riders do not pay their fare, a BART spokeswoman said. That translates into a $15 million to $25 million loss.
June 25, 2019
San Francisco Chronicle
By Rachel Swan
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