Metra Cracks Down on Fare Collections, Conductor Sprayed with Mace by Ticketless Passenger
By Chuck Sudo in News on Nov 14, 2011 8:30PM
Now that Metra has its fare hikethey're beginning to crack down on fare collections to ensure passengers are paying their fair, um, fare. It's welcome and, had Metra done this sooner, maybe they wouldn't have needed the fare hike so bad.
Metra Deputy Executive Director George Hardwidge said of the crackdown:
“Now it’s not something we do every day,” he said. “We do it in response to what our conductors tell us, what our customers tell us and what we find through our own management investigations when we think it needs to be done.”
Here's hoping the conductors tell Metra that more conductors are needed on trains, because that would lead to more people being charged to ride. In our experience riding Metra, not being charged a fare is a common occurrence and hiring observers to see if conductors are doing their jobs isn't enough.
Here's another reason more conductors may be needed. A conductor was sprayed with mace by a passenger this morning after she couldn't produce a ticket. 27-year-old Latoia Moore was charged with a felony count of aggravated battery to a transit employee and one misdemeanor count of theft after she was asked by a conductor to produce a ticket. When she refused another conductor came to assist the first one. that's when Moore produced the can of mace and sprayed one of the conductors. Moore was immediately arrested and the train was delayed for 20 minutes.