Pay $2—or Just Walk On? The Fare Nobody Pays and the $79 Million Maryland Somehow Cannot Find

 

Imagine paying your bus fare while the person beside you rides free. Now imagine that happening millions of times—and Maryland cannot tell you exactly what it costs.

I have finally discovered a business model more generous than charity. It is called Maryland public transportation. Apparently, you can get on a bus, sit down, ride across Baltimore, get off at your destination, and—if the allegation from some Maryland Transit Administration (MTA) bus drivers is anywhere close to correct—there is a decent chance nobody will seriously trouble you about that irritating little detail called paying.

The regular one-way fare is $2. MTA's own fare policy establishes fares and rules for Baltimore's Local Bus, Light Rail and Metro Subway services.

But rules are funny things.

They work best when somebody expects people to follow them.

That brings me to the number that should make Maryland taxpayers spill their coffee:

$79 million.

Not $79,000.

Not $790,000.

About $79 million.

To be clear, MTA has not said it lost $79 million. Spotlight on Maryland, the investigative reporting unit of WBFF FOX45 in Baltimore,  arrived at that figure using MTA ridership data and the estimate of an anonymous bus driver who said only about 15%–20% of riders pay. If the driver's estimate is right and roughly 80% do not pay, the arithmetic becomes almost embarrassingly simple.

MTA had approximately 49.6 million bus rides in FY2025.

Take 80% of 49.6 million.

That gives us approximately 39.7 million rides.

Multiply 39.7 million by $2.

Welcome to the neighborhood of $79 million.

Of course, that calculation is deliberately rough. Some passengers qualify for reduced fares. Some use daily, weekly or monthly passes. A ride is not necessarily the same thing as a $2 cash transaction. So I am not going to pretend that $79 million is an audited loss.

But that is not the part that bothers me.

What bothers me is that apparently nobody can tell me what the real number is. MTA's response, according to the report, is a masterpiece of government English. The agency says it "tracks and monitors" fare evasion as part of its operational and financial oversight, but calculating the resulting revenue loss is complicated because every incident cannot be directly observed or quantified.

Translation?

"We know it happens. We watch it happen. We track it. We monitor it. But please don't ask us how much money we're losing."

Beautiful.

Absolutely beautiful.

I wish I could run my household finances this way.

My bank calls.

"Joseph, where did the money go?"

"I am tracking and monitoring the situation."

"How much did you lose?"

"Estimating the loss is complex."

"Was it $500?"

"We do not have an annual estimate available to share at this time."

Try that with your mortgage company.

Try it with the IRS.

Try it with the Maryland Motor Vehicle Administration when you owe them money.

Suddenly, I suspect "estimating the situation is complex" will lose its magical power. And this is where the story becomes more than a tale about people sneaking onto buses. It becomes a story about accountability.

The anonymous driver interviewed by Spotlight on Maryland estimated that only 15%–20% of riders actually pay. That is one employee's estimate, not scientific proof. It should not be presented as established fact.

But it should be investigated.

Immediately.

Because if he is even remotely close, Maryland does not have a minor fare-evasion problem. It has a collection system with a pulse but no teeth. And other transit agencies have already demonstrated that fare evasion can be measured.

Travel about 40 miles south from Baltimore and things suddenly become less mysterious. Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority says fare revenue contributed $461.8 million toward its operations in FY2025, while it estimates that more than $50 million was lost to fare evasion on Metrobus and Metrorail.

Interesting.

Washington can estimate it.

Apparently, somewhere between Washington and Baltimore, mathematics gets off the train.

WMATA did something even more radical.

It acted.

Beginning in 2023, Metro began installing more secure faregates. Eventually, more than 1,200 taller gates were installed throughout all 98 Metrorail stations. By September 2024, WMATA reported that the changes had produced an 82% reduction in Metrorail fare evasion. It also installed new fareboxes on about 1,500 buses.

Think about that. 82%. That is not a philosophical discussion. That is a result. Metro did not eliminate fare evasion. Nobody sensible expects that. But it identified a problem, measured it, changed infrastructure and measured the result.

There is even an enforcement component. In calendar year 2024, Metro Transit Police issued more than 15,000 fare-evasion summonses or citations and made almost 1,000 fare-evasion arrests.

Whether every enforcement tactic should be copied is a separate debate. Fare enforcement can create legitimate questions involving poverty, equity, policing and the cost of enforcement itself. I am not suggesting that Maryland turn every $2 unpaid bus fare into an episode of "Cops." But there is an enormous distance between excessive enforcement and institutional surrender.

New York offers an even uglier warning.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority's Blue-Ribbon Panel reported nearly $700 million in fares and tolls went uncollected in 2022. Bus fare evasion alone accounted for an estimated $315 million. Subway fare evasion added another $285 million.

New York called the situation a crisis. Maryland apparently calls its situation "complex." I call that one hell of a vocabulary lesson. And there is another uncomfortable issue sitting quietly in the back of this bus. Who pays when riders do not? Money does not grow beneath the driver's seat. Maryland public transportation receives public support, including money flowing through the Transportation Trust Fund. So when legitimate revenue disappears, the financial pressure does not disappear with it. Somebody absorbs the cost.

The paying rider does.

The taxpayer does.

The motorist paying government fees does.

The transit system does.

Or service does.

Usually, everybody gets invited to the funeral. That is why this cannot simply be dismissed as poor people trying to save $2.

Some people genuinely cannot afford transportation. That is a real public-policy problem, and governments have legitimate options for dealing with it. Maryland already provides reduced-fare arrangements for qualifying riders.

If policymakers believe buses should be free, then say so.

Make them free.

Pass the policy.

Calculate the cost.

Appropriate the money.

Tell taxpayers what they are paying for.

That would at least be honest.

But a system in which the official fare is $2 while large numbers of people allegedly ride without paying is something stranger. It is a fare system operating on the honor system after honor has apparently missed the bus. The paying passenger walks aboard and taps a card.

Beep.

$2.

Another passenger walks aboard without paying.

Nothing.

The first passenger looks up.

"Wait. Why did I pay?"

Excellent question.

Repeat that experience often enough and government creates the worst possible incentive. It teaches honest people that honesty is for suckers. That damage is harder to calculate than $79 million.

Rules survive because most people believe everybody else is expected to obey them too. Once people discover that compliance is optional, voluntary compliance begins to look less like citizenship and more like stupidity. That is why MTA's inability to provide an annual fare-evasion loss estimate deserves scrutiny.

Maybe the real loss is nowhere near $79 million.

Fine.

Then measure it and tell us.

Maybe it is $10 million.

Tell us.

Maybe it is $25 million.

Tell us.

Maybe the anonymous driver's 80% estimate is wildly exaggerated.

Wonderful.

Prove it.

Because "we don't know" is not reassuring when the agency simultaneously says it tracks and monitors the problem. Tracking without producing a useful estimate is like installing a security camera and refusing to watch the recording.

The strangest part is that the evidence from Washington suggests this is not some unsolvable mystery. WMATA has published fare-evasion estimates, invested in physical barriers and reported measurable reductions. Its more secure Metrorail gates produced an 82% decline in fare evasion.

So I am left with a wonderfully Maryland question. What exactly are we waiting for? Another study? Another committee? A consultant? Perhaps a consultant to study whether we need a committee to determine whether we should commission a study.

Meanwhile:

Beep.

Another paying rider.

Door opens.

Another alleged fare evader.

Bus moves.

And somewhere inside an office, somebody is tracking and monitoring.

I do not know whether Maryland MTA is actually losing $79 million annually from bus fare evasion. But apparently MTA cannot give us its own annual number either. That is the scandal hiding inside the scandal. The most important number is not $79 million. It is the number Maryland does not know. When New York can estimate hundreds of millions in fare and toll evasion, and Washington can estimate more than $50 million in FY2025 fare-evasion losses, Maryland taxpayers deserve something better than bureaucratic fog.

Measure it.

Publish it.

Explain it.

Then decide what to do about it.

Because if government charges a fare, it should have a serious plan for collecting that fare. And if government no longer intends to collect it consistently, then government should have the courage to stop pretending it has a fare. Until then, Maryland appears to be running one of the strangest transportation experiments in America.

The sign says $2.

Some passengers pay.

Some allegedly do not.

The bus keeps moving.

And when taxpayers ask how much money may be going out the door, the people running the system reach for the most dependable vehicle government has ever built.

Not the bus.

The excuse.

 

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