Today we’ve got an exciting new report from Obvious Land: San Francisco’s public transit system has increased revenue, vastly improved customer safety, and is cleaner and more organized than ever, and they’ve achieved it all with just one neat trick. They actually fight crime. It worked.
This news won’t surprise most ordinary people, but liberals might. It turns out that when you install new gates so that fare evaders (that’s the euphemism we use to describe criminals who refuse to pay to use the subway) can’t get through, you magically improve everything about the subway. Seriously.
They’re even getting attention in the mainstream media, which endlessly excuses illegal behavior and says we need to address root causes like poverty and homelessness (which is really like saying we shouldn’t do anything to allow criminals to thrive). But look at the Atlantic’s headline, which admits:
“In August, BART completed the installation of new fare gates at station entrances and exits: six-foot-tall sedan-style doors made of Plexiglas with a metal frame that replaced the waist-high barriers of the 1970s that were easy to duck or jump over. The new gates force more riders to pay fares—revenues are expected to increase by $10 million annually. They have also led to a significant drop in vandalism. Workers spent nearly $1,000 $1,000. In the six months since the gates were installed, 1,000 hours were spent cleaning up unruly passengers, and crime on BART dropped 41 percent compared to the previous six months.”
How about it? It turns out that if you put in a little effort to deter, exclude and actually punish criminals, you’ll end up way ahead in the long run.
Note that this apparent finding was met with fierce opposition from so-called criminal justice reformers. Previously, the Center for Policing Equity said fighting crime does not make the subway system safer, pointing to research it said showed this. It turns out the social justice impact academics were wrong, and in the real world when you crack down on bad behavior you get very favorable outcomes.
Look, we know what’s going on here. This is classic broken windows policing. If you allow a small group of villains to commit even minor crimes, you’re bound to commit far greater crimes. You end up handing public space over to the mentally ill and dangerous.
So just a small increase in enforcement can actually make a big difference. Note that San Francisco has not yet solved homelessness or mental illness. It does not address the alleged root causes of crime. It simply installs a door or wall that criminals cannot jump over.
Maybe there’s a lesson in this.
Robby Soave is the co-host of The Hill’s commentary show “Rising” and a senior editor at Reason magazine. This column is an editorial transcription of his daily commentary.
Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
For the latest news, weather, sports and streaming video, head to The Hill.
