I gave myself a weekend off from blog reading.

Always a good idea.

And I agree with all of your potential outcomes. It’s exactly my thinking as well that a TRUE implementation of fare gates would require a massive increase in personnel, not a reduction as Metro has prescribed. Also, the technology failures are inevitable in my opinion, and without personnel to handle the issues immediately, it will result on chaos not only for the disabled, but for every other rider.

Suffice it to say that I believe this is going to come back and bite them, big time,

Could you expand on your thoughts on this? In what ways specifically do you think it will come back to bite them?

My first concern is that the gates will not provide the kind of protection against fare evasion as has been claimed, and that Metro will end up having to rehire uniformed personnel to staff the system (remember that it has been said, by no less than Metro CEO Roger Snoble, that some of the savings under this scheme comes from the elimination of uniformed fare inspectors).

My second concern is that lowering the number of uniformed personnel on the rail system will also result in a lower level of security on the system. I rather doubt that anyone intent on lawless behavior is going to be deterred by having to buy a ticket to get past the gates. I only hope it won’t take something like a murder or rape to bring this fallacy to light.

My third concern is that, inevitably, there is going to be a technology failure which impacts a disabled patron from accessing (or even worse, leaving) the system. It won’t take too many ADA complaints or lawsuits for the media to start pointing out that this wouldn’t have happened if Ms. Burke had left well enough alone. Aaron’s warnings, with the examples of Boston, New York, San Francisco and Washington should be sufficient to illuminate this issue.

Did anyone read the CityBeat editorial on the subject? I find it interesting that in their opening sentence they imply — as I have suspected as well — that this is an attempt by Yvonne to get a “legacy” before she leaves office … oh, yeah, I said that already, didn’t I?

Oh, and if anyone would like a chance to ask pointed and embarrassing questions of the Metro staff person who was the chief architect of this plan, Roger Moliere, he happens to be the guest speaker at this Saturday’s So.CA.TA meeting. (We had invited him before all the gating nonsense started, to talk about Metro’s development deals around rail stations, but I figure the gates are fair game now as well.) 1:00pm, in the 4th floor meeting room at Angelus Plaza, just north of Pershing Square Station on Hill St.

Fare gates are expensive to install and expensive to maintain. They will not come even remotely close to paying for themselves as the MTA has suggested. Many, if not most, of the scofflaws are “joy riders” that don’t have to ride Metro. We won’t be replacing their free rides with paying rides on a 1:1 basis.

Plus the gates will be difficult to integrate with current riding patterns. How do Metrolink riders keep their free rides? How do gold line riders leave the system and go back in to catch the red line without paying a higher weighted fare? What about the riders that use the barrier free stations? Or use both in the same trip? Metro is going to work all of this out, but it’s going to be a big convoluted waste of effort and money.

Most people, the disabled included, care more about being able to get to their destination than about the mode by which they access it.

Do you have any facts that ridership will decrease with the new fare gates? I think this is all speculation. Talking to the laymen (i.e. not us transit nuts who love to post comments on blogs), they think it’s a pretty cool idea. If they ride it, I don’t know. But, it seems generally the laypeople are happy; whereas the transit nuts here are against it. Interesting……

I suspect it’s that the typical transit nut confuses ridership maximization with effectiveness maximization, the same way that most businessmen mistake revenue maximization for profit maximization (this is a well-documented phenomenon).

The following content is backshadowed by “do not feed the trolls:

Indeed.

Oh, I get it. The do not feed the troll background comments are automatically applied by the website and not as advertised as being a popular vote.

Yes sir. You have been branded by the blog gods. The MetroRiderLA comment policy makes exceptions to the democratic model for personal attacks, especially those at the level you lobbed. Thus you wear our version of the Scarlett Letter.

Sadder.

The violin is so very small, and the song, so so sad, and Rob, it plays just for you.