Loudoun Supervisors Debate Local Metro Rules

County supervisors on Tuesday mulled over whether offenses like skipping the fare or going barefoot on Metro in Loudoun should be criminal offenses.

With Metrorail reaching serving jurisdictions across the region, each must adopt its own ordinances on conduct on the train for local law enforcement and Metro police to adopt. And some board members were troubled that something like wearing roller skates on the train could result in a criminal record.

Supervisors previously deferred action on a local ordinance governing behavior on Metro trains and buses over those same concerns, voting narrowly for Vice Chair Koran T. Saines’ (D-Sterling) request to add an option for civil penalties. Those could escalate into criminal matters with repeat offenses. Meanwhile, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority is seeking consistent local regulations across the system for the Metro Transit Police Department to enforce.

The ordinance proposed by county staff members treats various offenses—ranging from spitting on the train to riding on the top of the train—as misdemeanors. In particular, Metro and county staff members advised that fare jumping should be a Class 2 misdemeanor, upgrading to a Class 1 misdemeanor for a second offense within a year.

Class 2 misdemeanors are punishable by up to six months in jail and a fine of up to $1,000. Class 1 misdemeanors are punishable by up a year in jail and a fine of up to $2,500.

“These crimes—marking or drawing on a railcar or station, having no shoes on, spit or expectorating, discarding litter, wearing roller skates, riding a bicycle or skateboard—these could in theory put a criminal offense on a person’s record for the rest of their lives,” Chair Phyllis J. Randall (D-At Large) said.

“I’m thinking of a 20-something that is doing something that’s silly, and then a few years down the road they’re looking to get a security clearance and unable to do that,” Supervisor Sylvia R. Glass (D-Broad Run) said.

Others argued civil penalties are unenforceable.

“The reality of it would be, you can do these things and nothing will happen to you, nothing from a law enforcement perspective,” Supervisor Tony R. Buffington (R-Blue Ridge) said.

And some at the meeting argued fare evasion is related to other more serious crimes.

Supervisor Matthew F. Letourneau (R-Dulles), a member of Metro’s board of directors, said there have already been 21,000 instances of fare evasion in Loudoun since the Silver Line began service.

“That’s over a million dollars in lost revenue to Metro, at a time when our system is about to see true fiscal cliff with a $750 million deficit,” Letourneau said. “That’s the financial side. That’s not the real reason to do this. The real reason to do this is because we have a crisis of public confidence and safety on our system.”

Letourneau said violence from neighborhoods Metro serves is spilling onto the system.

“Randy Clarke, our GM, has a saying, which is that not everyone who fare evades is a criminal, but every criminal on the system fare evades,” he said. “So if we are able to stop at the point of entry, as the chief said, then we really will contribute to safety on the system.”

Chief of Metro Transit Police Chief Mike Anzallo said stopping people for fare evasion often ends in an arrest.

“When somebody fare evades into the Metro system our officers will stop them, will write a Virginia uniform summons, we’ll get their name as long as they cooperate, and then we’ll run their name through a law enforcement database to check for any warrants they may have,” he said. “And what we do encounter quite often is that folks we do run through do have open warrants and are subject to arrest.”

If not, he said, they are escorted off Metro property.

Anzallo said after transit police ramped up enforcement on fare evasion, crime on the system dropped off “tremendously.” After Washington, DC decriminalized fare evasion, he said, “the only thing we could do is get their cooperation if possible, but if they walk past us, there’s nothing we could do to stop that person.”

Supervisors agreed to send the new ordinances to a public hearing with offenses classed as misdemeanors.

“We go to criminal justice first in this country. We incarcerate everything, all the time,” Randall said, although she voted yes.

Supervisors voted unanimously to send the ordinance to a July 12 public hearing.