The Editor,
Re. "Cops better than faregates will be" (Letters, The Tri-City News, March 21).
It's too late to complain about faregates now that they are being installed in many SkyTrain stations.
Having used transit systems in quite a few towns on three continents, and having done lots of fact checking about transit, I can safely say that the highest level of fare evasion is on buses and streetcars, not rapid transit.
I have lived in Vancouver for 30 years, using transit at least twice a day, often at different times each day. In all these years, I have never seen fare inspectors on any of the regular buses. Since the creation of the Transit Police, I have only seen them on the articulated buses a couple of times, starting last year.
There must be a good reason many of the transit systems that I have used (including systems that have more passengers in a few weeks than TransLink has in a year) do not use a transit police force. Most transit systems, both bigger or smaller than Vancouver's, use fare inspectors to check fares, especially in buses and streetcars.
Apparently in Berlin, fare inspectors are in plain clothes. Once in a while, after the doors of a subway train close, several passengers get up, flash their badge and start checking tickets.
In Paris, officers of the city police force check rapid transit stations as part of their street beat but don't check tickets. Only once in a while will the city police do a spot check, usually in heavily used stations where there are more opportunities to cheat. As passengers turn a corner in an underground corridor a dozen cops block their way.
J-L Brussac, Coquitlam
