Should you jump the turnstile?

A couple of months ago, the New York City subway started installing new “anti-evasion” bars on turnstiles. Essentially plastic crescent moons extending out from the bars, they were intended to make it harder to simply launch oneself over. They instantly failed: Some jumpers were tall, others limber, still others willing to crawl rather than jump. This failure came a month after the MTA also installed spiked panels between the turnstiles, figuring jumpers would not want to impale their hands as they vaulted through. Those also failed. Turnstile jumping continues apace, costing the MTA as much as $800 million a year.

The MTA, unsurprisingly, doesn’t like this. As of January 1, 2025, the fines for jumpers have increased:

I’m not here to complain about or condemn turnstile-jumpers. People do it for a variety of reasons, from actual financial necessity to “just because I can.” The first case, combined with the significant racial bias that comes into play when police crack down on fare evaders, is precisely why public transit should be fare-free, but the second one is worth considering: If you can afford to pay for the subway or bus but believe in free transit, should you jump or should you pay?

Let’s take the pro-jump perspective first: If you believe public transit should be fare-free, then maybe you should jump! For one, you can see it as an act of civil disobedience, an extension of your sincerely held personal beliefs into the public realm. Meanwhile, if you are acting as part of a group, or part of a movement, then you are increasing the problem for the authorities. If more people evade the fare, they will be more occupied in enforcing the penalties—possibly too occupied to actually enforce them in every case² . Likewise, if enough travelers jump the turnstile that it reduces the MTA’s farebox take, perhaps the system itself will have to confront the fact that a significant number of commuters believe in fare-free public transit—and then, perhaps, it will take the issue seriously.

That’s a big perhaps!

There is, of course, no guarantee that the police will get tired of enforcement, that the MTA and the political system will wake up to the idea of fare-free transit, or that the paying public won’t revolt against turnstile-jumpers, as they often have before. Still, if you’re acting out of belief, those things won’t necessarily matter. But your conscience does.

But here’s something else to consider: Is the argument for fare-free transit a moral argument or an economic argument? You could certainly say it’s a moral argument. Requiring increasingly high, and increasingly unaffordable, fares simply to move around New York City punishes the neediest, forcing them to spend money they barely have and punishing them with fines and arrest when they evade the fare. Not to mention punishing Black and Hispanic fare-beaters disproportionately, regardless of their reasons for jumping. Ending these inequities by turnstile-jumping as protest is all about morality.

The economic argument, meanwhile, says public-transit fares are bad business, and bad for business. High prices push an essential service out of reach, and since it’s such an essential service it should be provided to the public free of charge. The money they would otherwise spend, or overspend, on just getting around the city could go elsewhere, to other businesses, whose increased tax revenues might possibly¹ make up the shortfall in MTA farebox sums. This line of thinking imagines that there is an ideal price for a subway or bus ride, and that that price is zero.

With this argument, I think it’s a little harder to vouch for fare-beating. Since we’re recognizing the inextricable costs of running (and riding) a transit system, we know that money is a part of it, and starving the system of that money in some kind of accelerationist fantasy pushes you away from the realm of rationality (i.e., here’s what the system costs everyone, but here’s how it could work better) and into the realm of faith—back to the moral argument. To look at the economics of transit is to think about concrete steps to get to fare-free transit. And each of those steps may improve not only the economic picture but also the moral one—by having the system make more financial sense, it also becomes more humane.

Clearly, I’m leaning on the side of economics, and of not jumping the turnstile. But is that just because I’m a coward, unwilling to risk my finances and potentially my freedom in service of my beliefs? Yes, a little. Is it also because I’m too short and too old to vault over (or crawl under) the turnstile? Oh, definitely.

But maybe what I need, maybe what we all need, is the support of our fellow commuters. To fare-beat alone is a risk. To fare-beat en masse is a movement. Let’s get a movement together, and you’ll see me leaping like a ballerina! Here’s a preview:

1  Perhaps!

2  Plus, if you happen to be a white person, you may draw attention away from the people of color who are more often the target of police enforcement in these cases.