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On Sept. 17, 2024, hundreds of protesters in Brooklyn, New York, calling for an end to police violence on public transit and demanding free fares. Some protesters 鈥渄istributed MetroCards and ,鈥� while others before filing into subway cars. The New York Police Department arrested at least 18 people.

The impetus for this protest came two days earlier, when NYPD officers confronted 37-year-old Derell Mickles for hopping a turnstile at the Sutter Avenue station. Mickles allegedly 鈥渃harged鈥� at officers with a knife, which police say led them to fire their guns in self-defense鈥攖hough body cam footage shows

Officers shot Mickles, a fellow officer, and two bystanders. Mayor Eric Adams, himself, by citing Mickles鈥� arrest record and the necessity of fare enforcement. 鈥淚f lawmakers want to make the subways and buses free, then fine,鈥� Adams said. 鈥淏ut as long as there are rules, we鈥檙e going to follow those rules.鈥�

Incidents such as these reflect a long history of dangerous, and even fatal, interactions between NYPD and 鈥渇are evaders.鈥� Authorities have long conflated fare evasion with dangerous criminal behavior鈥攗sing race- and class-based assumptions that minor infractions create an environment for violent crime (sometimes referred to as 鈥渂roken windows鈥� policing). Demands to reform fare enforcement have been a frequent part of the discourse around improving New York鈥檚 transit system. But some abolitionist groups go further in calling for free fares as a step toward removing police from public transit entirely.

Militant protest against fare enforcement is part of an abolitionist struggle that often goes unnoticed and highlights how transit safety has shaped the look of modern policing.听

Fare Boxes and Broken Windows

New York鈥檚 Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) is in the midst of two connected crises: long-running fears about crime, and . MTA鈥檚 budget woes have a number of causes, such as declining tax revenue and a controversial , but the agency has long portrayed Fare box revenue represents . According to recent MTA data, as much as board without paying, leading to hundreds of millions of dollars in lost revenue each year. 

MTA has tried a number of strategies to reduce fare evasion, including redesigned infrastructure and aggressive messaging. But over the past five years, increased policing has become a catchall solution to stop fare evaders鈥攁nd to make transit feel safer in the process. In 2023, NYPD issued , and arrests have 鈥渕ore than doubled鈥� during Adams鈥� administration. Meanwhile, police raids have become increasingly common. In March 2024, NYPD announced an 800-officer surge at subway stations (dubbed 鈥溾��), while MTA has used (with assistance from NYPD) to check bus fares in the past two years.

In 2019, a group of riders founded , a community network that uses social media to crowdsource alerts about police presence on public transit. Inspired by grassroots campaigns against fare enforcement in Montreal and Chile, Unfare鈥檚 work reduces contact between officers and riders to promote a vision of 鈥渁 ride without fares and a world with no police.鈥� Unfare member Daria says transit is an obvious place for abolitionist struggle: 鈥淚t鈥檚 a site where the city鈥檚 working class is forced into contact with a police presence that keeps getting bigger and bigger.鈥� (Unfare members are using pseudonyms to protect their identities.)

Another group, , has been offering 鈥渁 grassroots community response to broken windows policing鈥� since 2016. They encourage riders to share fare cards.

For decades, New York鈥檚 transit police have used turnstile hopping as a marker of dangerous or undesirable populations. Teams of officers began in the 1990s, sometimes posing as civilians in 鈥渄ecoy operations.鈥� Former transit police chief Bill Bratton who served from 1990 to 1992, outfitted the force with new patrol cars, 鈥�,鈥� and, controversially, semi-automatic handguns. Bratton later served two non-consecutive terms as commissioner of the NYPD. As though foreshadowing the Sutter Avenue shooting, critics argued in 1990 that 鈥渨ould not only increase the risk of bystanders being shot but also of police officers wounding themselves or fellow officers.鈥�

鈥淟aw and Order鈥� at the Turnstiles

In 1982, criminologists George L. Kelling and James Q. Wilson proposed that visible signs of neighborhood disorder (such as graffiti, public intoxication, and vagrancy) could and cause community members to retreat from public spaces. This so-called 鈥渂roken windows鈥� theory has become one of the most important frameworks of modern policing, especially in New York City. 鈥淔are evasion has been the most common thing that someone gets arrested for in New York, I believe, for [more than] 20 years,鈥� says , program director at New York University鈥檚 Marron Institute of Urban Management.

Elected officials, police leaders, and pundits鈥攃onservative and liberal alike鈥攃ontinue to use 鈥渂roken windows鈥� rhetoric to justify greater fare enforcement. Manhattan Institute senior fellow Nicole Gelinas recently wrote in the that 鈥渢he only thing that will change people鈥檚 minds is if they know that a penalty will be swift, certain and actually collected.鈥� New York Times columnist that 鈥渕any progressives are still loath to admit that broken windows policing works,鈥� while suggesting that police abolition reflects 鈥渁n elitist attitude that betrays a lack of experience with crime-ridden environments.鈥� 

Who does fare enforcement benefit? Studies by the and the have found that fare enforcement occurs more frequently in low-income and majority-Black and Latinx neighborhoods. In 2023, nonwhite New Yorkers represented , and criminal justice reformers have consistently pointed to .

In response to these critiques, community groups, politicians, and consultants have proposed reforms aimed at reducing race and class disparities in fare enforcement. In 2022, the , a grassroots organization of MTA users, published 鈥�,鈥� which recommends unarmed civilian personnel to check fares and expanded eligibility for fare discounts. A commissioned by MTA leadership calls for 鈥減recision policing鈥� that uses data to identify fare evasion hotspots and a 鈥渨arnings-first approach to summonses for first-time evaders.鈥澛�

It鈥檚 not clear whether punitive enforcement tactics actually reduce fare evasion. In , MTA acknowledged that 鈥渢hese costly and sometimes controversial methods have had limited success in reversing the upward trend in riders who do not pay.鈥� What such tactics are effective at is sending large numbers of vulnerable people through the criminal justice system each year. They can trap people in , even .听

Increases in transit policing have, in turn, energized abolitionist calls to remove police from MTA. When former in 2019, groups like Swipe It Forward and , an anti-imperialist protest coalition, . Anonymous activists called for fare-free, cop-free subways and put up dozens of

Abolitionists have often grounded their critiques in the history of American policing, which is intertwined with chattel slavery and settler colonialism. A Swipe It Forward organizer recently that 鈥渢he NYPD 鈥� are fixated on slave patrolling and quotas, and they use the transit system as one of their main iterations to do so.鈥� , a Palestinian solidarity coalition, echoed this language in : 鈥淭he NYPD protects property and capital, it funnels black and immigrant populations into endless cycles of immiseration and poverty and modern enslavement.鈥�

From Affordable Transit to Free Transit

There is precedent for free transit. for months in 2020 as a COVID-19 mitigation tactic and recently ended an 11-month pilot program suspending fare on five bus routes. According to MTA, that pilot led to 鈥� and 38 percent on weekends.鈥� But the idea has yet to catch on as a permanent solution. 

While transit agencies across the country have in recent years to reduce congestion, encourage higher ridership, and address economic inequality, . 鈥淭he idea of fare free transit is worth debating, and the more experiments the better,鈥� says Kafui Attoh, Ph.D., associate professor of Urban Studies at the City University of New York. 鈥淎t the same time, we [shouldn鈥檛] gloss over the potential drawbacks, in terms of funding and ridership.鈥�

Perhaps the biggest hurdle to a fare-free MTA is replacing fare box revenue in its budget and finding political support to do so. Research on fare-free transit tends to focus on smaller cities with lower ridership that don鈥檛 rely heavily on fare box revenue. 鈥淭here鈥檚 something of a paradox here,鈥� says Attoh. 鈥淲here it is feasible, its impact will be limited, and where its impact would be the greatest, its feasibility is the most questionable.鈥� Goldwyn adds that without substantively addressing the budget gap, a move toward free fares could lead to service cuts, creating 鈥渆ven less frequency and worse reliability鈥� for those who rely on transit. 

In other words, if cities such as New York want to invest in making public transit free and accessible鈥攊n the same way that libraries and public schools are鈥攖hey need to make it a priority in their budgets. Abolitionist groups advocate reductions in police funding to do so. MTA鈥檚 鈥渇iscal cliff鈥� suggests a fundamental imbalance between expanding police and fully funding public services. Indeed, New York鈥檚 fare crisis reflects a broader debate about the basic function of police in a city where . 

The website , a resource of 鈥渘on-reformist reforms鈥� compiled in 2020, cast free public transit with investments in health care, education, and community-based food providers as two sides of the same coin. It is a way to 鈥渋nvest in care, not cops.鈥� , a former grassroots campaign to close the Rikers Island jail complex, echoes this, calling for removing all NYPD officers from the MTA and decriminalizing fare evasion to 鈥減ay the annual fares of all New Yorkers who cannot afford [it].鈥�

Last year, when Gov. Kathy Hochul and Mayor Adams鈥� sent more than 1,000 extra officers to patrol subways, 鈥攁nd the state reimbursed the city for less than half that amount. Meanwhile, to libraries, parks, early childhood education, and more, many of which were reversed after public outcry. Unfare member Lou argues that fare evasion鈥檚 outsized role in MTA鈥檚 budget crisis reflects a 鈥渓ong history of stripping funding for these services and shifting the blame to 鈥榗rime鈥� and the poor.鈥�

In fall 2024, the Sutter Avenue shooting sparked a new wave of , , and 鈥�.鈥� As abolitionists scrutinize NYPD for , , and , they are using transit issues to advocate for a transformative vision of community safety鈥攚ith a fare-free MTA at the center. A city without fares is 鈥渄eeply connected to our collective freedom of movement more broadly,鈥� says Lou. 鈥淏eing free to move through our city together means being free from police harassment and violence, from fines and incarceration.鈥�

By removing a key incentive to police subways and buses, transit agencies could meet the demand surging through New York鈥檚 subways and realize the abolitionist call to 鈥淟ive free, ride free.鈥�