So far I have been in Seattle for less than 24 hours and have done toll skipping 7 times lol. Public transit is de facto free here
Yeah I just went to Vancouver last week and it was pretty much the same. When my stupid card said “not enough funds” or whatever and I paused to try and pay for like three milliseconds everyone looked pissed at me for wasting time, including the bus driver.
That's interesting. I haven't taken the Vancouver Skytrain regularly in a while, but I used to see transit cops do fare checks regularly. Maybe their reputation caught up with them.
Yeah I only took the sky train twice. But BC ferries and the busses are a joke. Like it was difficult to even pay for bc ferries
Skytrain has fare gates now
Yeah, it's awesome. It's also genuinely free for 18 and under, which hopefully will get the kids hooked on public transit.
Light rail is less generous to toll skipping, though.
I really really wish I'd saved the music video that @chicago_commune made a few years ago about hopping turnstiles.
Here's the one Eugene Dabs made
https://youtu.be/s1ClkhnLjyo?si=URGAU0MHOGzRjCqE
I just got another free ride from a cool bus driver comrade.
i hope you're following the example of the comrade who opened the exit door for everyone?
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
Dont admit to doing crimes on the internet, but yes
It's technically not a crime if they just let you do it cuz you can't tap to pay. Toll skipping was a slight exaggeration.
I threw 20 bucks on an ORCA card when I got there and swiped it maybe half the time. Still has fare on it.
Lol I haven’t paid for the bus in about a year or more. You just get on. Don’t even have to “look homeless.” Driver rarely says anything and if they do, that’s all they do (bus drivers here are usually comrades anyway). Fare pigs never get on the buses, though they do get on the trains.
Seattle bus drivers are fucking homies and absolute comrades in my experience, I spent some time couch surfing/semi-homeless in the U district in my early 20s and other than close friends that let me stay with them and family restaurant/café owners that gave me something on the house in exchange for helping them clean up a bit, transit workers were by far the most sympathetic and kind public servants I encountered. SPD were fucking stormtroopers, city officials were basically useless, but bus drivers were some of the nicest strangers I ever met outside of gay bartenders in cap hill.
Only time I've ever had my fare checked on a proof-of-payment transit system was on the Link in Seattle.
Edit: okay nevermind that's actually not true I commuted on Caltrain for a few years and they checked on that pretty regularly.
Caltrain checks nearly daily. I bought the damned clipper card but it was malfunctioning and the guy checked it 3 days in a row and on the 3rd day told me to either get a new card or he'd slap me with a fine.
Denver's RTD is also de facto free. It has no fare gates at all, just very occasional fare checking rent a cops on the trains. But it also sucks shit because it runs half hourly or even hourly and is always late.
I have my ORCA card through work so I don't pay regardless of whether I tap or not. Sometimes the tap things aren't even in service. And of course the RapidRide ones are also outside the bus so fare skipping looks exactly the same as not fare skipping.
You can totally do that on buses in Athens. It's one of the tap things and no one checks.
I been here for less than 24hr and done like 7 instances of toll skipping. They don't want you to know this but the trams and busses in Seattle are free, you can just take them. I have over 100 miles of free rides.