Guerrilla Subway Ads Urge New Yorkers To Swipe In Fareless Riders

NEW YORK — An anonymous group of New Yorkers is protesting the MTA's campaign against farebeaters with its own posters urging commuters to give a MetroCard swipe to riders in need.

"Together, we can make a better world. See someone evading the fare?" the guerrilla ads read. "Don't snitch. Swipe."

The anonymous campaign organizers told Gothamist their posters are a response to the MTA's new fare evasion PSAs, which ask riders to pay the fare and not hold open the subway's emergency gates for other straphangers.

"What was really upsetting about this campaign was that it seemed to be an effort to change the empathetic morale of New Yorkers," one of the designers told Gothamist. "It's normal to hold the door open when you can. We look out for each other."

I’m so proud of the mysterious fellow New Yorkers who put these ads up. As the MTA & NYPD continue to police poor communities of color, these guerrilla ads are a good reminder that folks are trying to address this systemic racism
pic.twitter.com/ULle4NK1gs
— They're a pretty boy (@prettyboy_zhao) September 18, 2019

The transit authority has recently doubled down on fare evasion, dispatching a team of 500 cops to so-called fare evasion "hotspots" to slap farebeaters with $100 fines.

An organization called Swipe It Forward (currently raising money on GoFundMe) has begun handing out free single rides at these hot spots and informing New Yorkers about the dangers of getting caught jumping the turnstile, a promotional video shows.

"Real New Yorkers swipe it forward," an advocate shouts in a crowded subway station. " Being black is not a crime."

MTA officials say the agency lost an estimated $243 million in the yearlong period ending in March 2019.

Nearly one in every five bus riders doesn't pay, and about three percent of subway riders skip the fare, according to New York City Transit President Andy Byford.

The MTA says it just wants to recover lost revenue, but the anonymous poster creators told Gothamist the agency's fare evasion effort is broken windows policing by another name.

Roughly 90 percent of people arrested last year for fare evasion were people of color, and 65 percent of fare evasion summonses went to people of color, Gothamist reported.

"The further criminalization of low-income New Yorkers who cannot afford MTA fare erodes the progress we have made to make New York a more fair and just city," Tina Luongo, the attorney-in-charge of the Legal Aid Society's Criminal Defense Practice, said in a statement after the MTA announced its new tactics.

(Not as pretty, but on point) pic.twitter.com/9DoQNqDWuM
— Dorothee Benz (@DrBenz3) September 18, 2019