I would note that when they do check fares it's pretty obvious they're going to. Oh hey, a couple of transit cops standing on the station waiting to board. Fantastic, guess I'll buy a ticket, says the guy who hasn't bought one in 3 months. I've seen that twice.
That being said, how fast would you need to be speeding to get a $250 ticket? That's my issue here; it's unduly punitive, taken in context. As a deterrent, this is way out of whack with most traffic fines and it's aimed at people who take the train, which is a) a practice we should be encouraging and b) a group of people who by and large have less money than those of us with cars to drive. If they want to increase revenue for transit, bump up the cost of traffic violations and funnel some of the resulting revenue over to the transit system.
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