SEPTA will install new fare gates at nine more subway stations by the end of next year after testing the nearly 8-foot-tall entryways at 69th Street Transportation Center this year. The first installation is expected to be at City Hall Station on the Broad Street Line next spring.
SEPTA debuted the new gates at 69th Street in April as part of a push to reduce fare evasion, which is easier to pull off at the turnstiles currently used across the rest of the system. At 69th Street, SEPTA found that fare sales increased in the weeks and months after the gates were installed. Having them at that station alone is projected to generate about $350,000 in additional revenue annually, spokesperson Andrew Busch said.
Across the system, SEPTA said it loses about $30 million per year because of fare evasion.
"We would expect that we're going to see similar results at other locations," Busch said.
On the Broad Street Line, SEPTA plans to install the new gates at City Hall and Cecil B. Moore stations. On the Market-Frankford Line, they'll be added at Somerset, Huntingdon, Allegheny, 11th Street, 13th Street and 52nd Street stations. They'll also be installed at Frankford Transportation Center.
SEPTA's $6.96 million contract with Conduent Solutions Inc., the same contractor that maintains the SEPTA Key system, includes 100 of the new fare gates.
The taller gates are designed to prevent people from hopping over the turnstiles, but they're not completely foolproof. Fare evaders can still "piggyback" other paying customers by following closely behind them through the gates after a fare is paid. There's also an opening at the bottom that people can slip through, although Busch said that's been uncommon.
"No design is going to be 100% in terms of keeping potential fare evaders out no matter what," he said. "These gates look like they are significantly improving the situation at 69th Street."
SEPTA also has increased the number of transit police assigned to monitor and dole out citations for fare evasion, which has downstream effects on safety.
"It's usually the first step for someone who's going to commit a more serious crime," Busch said.
SEPTA said it will be able to better track fare evasion with the new gates because they have sensors that can detect when people go through them using another person's fare. They're also designed to distinguish between adults, children and people in wheelchairs.
Bringing the new gates to more stations is one of several moves SEPTA has made to increase revenue in the face of $240 million annual budget deficits. Parking fees at Regional Rail stations are now being phased back in and SEPTA is poised to eliminate reduced fares in December, generating an estimated $14 million in new annual revenue.
"It's not getting us anywhere near our budget gap, but we are doing these things to chip away at that," Busch said. "It sends a message to the people we're talking to in Harrisburg about increasing funding for SEPTA and other public transit that we're doing everything we can to be good financial stewards of the system."