Quote:
Originally Posted by powderjunkie
I think it's just hard to isolate causal links when so many variables change. I don't know that napkin math from a politician who may desire his own spin for whatever reason is particularly strong evidence. And the Vancouver context is simply very very different than here.
Also worth considering from that article:
Again, we'd need a lot more details to factor if/how much revenue they lost from fines
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I mean, I agree that correlation doesn't prove causation. But fare collection went up over 10% after they installed the gates. Population growth in the greater Vancouver region averaged 1.3% between the relevant censuses (censii??). There was no fare increase during the measurement period. The Canada Line opened more than 6 years prior, so presumably any extra traffic from that was baked in.
At some point Occam's razor applies here.
As for the fines - Translink's website says its $173. So even if we assume all 10,000 of those less fines actually got paid you're only at $1.73 MM in lost fine revenue against $40 MM in increased fares. Plus having the transit cops freed up from writing tickets to deal with bigger issues seems like a potentially significant benefit given the topic of this thread.
Like I mentioned before - I don't think walling off downtown stations makes sense. But a lot of the suburban ones have one entrance. Gates wouldn't be insurmountable there and would almost certainly pay for themselves.