Fare’s Fair

Light rail tracks, on that morning the train never arrived.

I started taking light rail downtown to teach back in January, and prior to that I took it into town often for events. And every single time, I felt like a sucker for actually buying a ticket, having never seen anyone check them. Of course, there is the sign on the train that reminds passengers of the $500 fine for riding without paying first. I started doing the math to figure out how often I would have to ride for free for the $500 fine to be worth it. The answer is “a lot” it turns out, so I resumed buying my ticket every day and feeling like a sucker.

On Monday I was running late, and got to the light rail stop just as the train was pulling up. The driver was kind enough to wait as I ran. Of course, I skipped the ticket machine, running like mad with my heavy backpack. When it was time for the return trip home, I thought about buying a one way ticket back. The train was late this time, so I had half an hour to think about it. I also thought about the ticket I bought on the Tuesday between the two snow storms this month, when everything was on schedule according to MTA website, but the train never arrived and I had to find a teacher to fill in for me thirty minutes before the start of class as I was sitting in traffic on 83.

I decided to forgo the ticket. The ticket from that Tuesday, along with half a dozen others were in my pocket, proving that I am a responsible, ticket buying citizen, should anyone really want to know. Finally, the train arrived, and when I got on, the first thing I saw at the top of the steps was a woman with a clipboard, and a patch on her uniform that read “FARE INSPECTOR.”

I avoided eye contact, sat down, and considered my options. Five hundred dollars! Do they really fine people $500? I could get off at the next stop, buy a ticket, and wait for the next train, but I had already waited thirty-five minutes for the one in which I was sitting. I went through my story about the unused ticket and my uprightedness again. I could always lie and say I forgot to buy the ticket for the return trip, but lying is… lying. I opted to remain on the train, not look back to where the fare inspector was standing, and hope she didn’t walk by me. I went over my story again and again.

Two stops before mine, I finally turned around, and she was gone. She could have gone back to the other car, and might get back on at the next stop. I tried not to fidget, and counted every landmark on the way back to my stop. Five hundred dollars!

Finally, the train got to my stop, and I exited quickly. (What if she checked people as they got off the train?)

Today, of course, I bought a ticket, but I still felt kind of foolish. In almost three years back in Baltimore, I have seen a fare inspector exactly once. What are the odds there would be one on the train today, too? Nonetheless, I paid my $3.20 and got on board.

Behold, on the way home, there was a different fare inspector on the train. And this fare inspector had a gun, and other scary looking possible fare-extracting implements. The first person he approached was a man with an open soda. After some argument (“I wasn’t drinking it, just holding it.”), he and two people without tickets were ordered off the train where, from the chatter of people around me who could see them through the window, bad things involving slips of paper occurred.

So, the moral of this story is 1) MTA is not fucking around about that open beverage thing; 2) buy your ticket and 3) it has been a very lucky couple of days.