Comment by bretthoerner

16 days ago

https://www.bart.gov/news/articles/2026/news20260908

I ride BART. I'm two blocks from a busy transfer station. It's great for going to a show and getting home without driving (drunk).

Arguing that modern fare gates lowered crime is a pretty terrible response to the comment to which you responded. It shows a real lack of articulation ("crime bad, crime down here, therefore I don't need to refute what you said").

The original poster said:

> The guy that committed that murder wasn't going to be deterred by a ticket fee.

I don't see how lower crime on BART due to fewer people hopping the turnstiles refutes that at all. (Huh, I just learned turnstiles is spelled with an I and not a Y. At least your comment led to me learning something.) It just seems defeatist, which is what the people looting this country want.

  • > "crime bad, crime down here, therefore I don't need to refute what you said"

    You're literally making up entire sentences, are you OK?

    > The original poster said:

    >> The guy that committed that murder wasn't going to be deterred by a ticket fee.

    > I don't see how lower crime on BART...

    Maybe you didn't read the link, but it's a 67% reduction in crimes against _riders_. Not property, not soliciting, but crimes against other humans.

    The murderer in question was unemployed, homeless and aimlessly riding public transit. We (as a society) should have done a lot more for him, but (see stats above) it seems clear to me that making it easier to be in a confined space with the rest of society wasn't solving his problems and certainly didn't help her.

You can cut crime all the way down to zero by shutting down all transport. You could decrease it to a very low minimum by setting a $100 / trip fare. But then it wouldn't be public transport anymore.