CKNW News has learned Coast Mountain bus drivers pushed the ‘fare not paid button’ on board their coaches 2.1-million times in 2011. If you multiply that with the cheapest fare of two-dollars-50 cents, that’s just over five-million-dollars in lost revenue.
Bus drivers union boss Don McLeod figures that number’s on the low side, “You we’d like to see the money in the fare boxes five, ten, 15 million, whatever it is. You know what you calculated on $ 2.50 a ride, that’s the minimum. You know some of these are quite possibly three zones, you know, so that’s the minimum from the stats that show that and it’s no secret it’s there.”
Translink executive Bob Paddon admits fare evasion’s just as bad on Skytrain, “I’m not sure I’m surprised. We’re concerned with the amount of fare issues that we have on board the bus. When you look at the total dollars involved with fare evasion on our system the bus has as much fare evasion as the Skytrain system.”
NDP Transportation critic Harry Baines says the solution is simple, get Transit cops on board the buses, “I have spoken to many drivers, they are frustrated they are not getting the support they need and at the same time they know the money is not being collected. People are not paying when they should be paying.”
Many drivers say they don’t even bother to push the ‘not paid button’ because there are so many freeloaders and Translink doesn’t do anything about it.
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