The transit agency spent about $26.5 million to repair MetroCard vending machines in 2017, and 47 percent of the machines vandalized were in Manhattan, according to data provided by the MTA. The police say swipers sometimes break the machines to force people to buy rides from them. The Police Department did its own analysis of 2015 through 2017, and 86 people had an average of 22 arrests each, Walzak said. He said the Police Department is “zeroing in” on frequent offenders in stations where there are fewer patrolling police officers, cameras and MetroCard machines. But Walzak said the same seven stations that James identified are currently the top arrest sites.
The Police Department could not confirm the public advocate’s analysis because before 2010, swipers were charged with petit larceny, not unlawful sale of transportation services, said Phillip Walzak, a spokesman for the Police Department. By comparison, the Times Square station that serves the 1, 2, 3, N, R and Q trains had just one arrest in those 10 years, according to the analysis. Another station in East Harlem, one stop away at 116th Street, and two stations in the Bronx are among the top seven swiping arrest sites. Though swiping happens all over the city, James’ office analyzed 10 years of arrests through 2016 and found that nearly 20 percent, 638 of the 3,300 arrests, occurred at the 125th station where the 4, 5, and 6 trains run.
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But when swipers bend the cards to crease the magnetic strip in a way that creates a free ride even on a card with a zero balance, they face forgery charges that can carry yearslong sentences. The criminal charge for swiping is generally unauthorized sale of certain transportation, a class B misdemeanor, which carries a maximum three-month jail sentence. “It appears to be stop and frisk under the guise of a MetroCard,” James said. Letitia James, the city’s public advocate who is running for state attorney general, is concerned about another aspect of this underground economy: the higher number of swiping arrests at some subway stations in low-income and predominantly black and Hispanic neighborhoods, when compared with arrests in stations in other parts of the city that are as busy or busier. The hustle, which is about as old as the MetroCard, is a measure of the pressures on New Yorkers to make a dollar or save a dollar amid deepening income inequality and fare increases that have far outpaced inflation.
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