Police have begun cracking down on people evading Washington, D.C., metro bus fares, resulting in almost 400 citations and five arrests between May 24 and May 28, according to a senior official.
Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) General Manager Randy Clarke spoke May 28 alongside Montgomery County District 4 Councilmember Kate Stewart and other officials about WMATA’s efforts to stop fare evasion. This comes after the organization estimated that they lost over $50 million thanks to fare evasion on both the Metrobus and Metrorail in the 2025, fiscal year, Capitol News Service reported.
“We’re going to have uniform presence out a lot more,” Clarke said. “The chief and his team are going to be flooding the bus system. And that means we’re probably going to be a little light on the rail system, but we’re still going to make sure the rail system is safe. With that said, we’re also adding a lot of our management team out here. Obviously that’s not sustainable long term, but we are kind of blitzing the system over the following weeks.”
WMATA made million-dollar investments in station gate upgrades, but officials have said the investments have paid off, according to Fox5. Fare evasion on the rail system sits at just 4.8%, which is an 82% decline. However, the Metro bus system faced 69.4% fare evasion, according to data revealed at a Metro meeting May 14. (RELATED: Trump’s DC Crackdown Wipes Out Homeless Encampments)
Since police are unable to cover every one of the 8,000 Metrobus stops, they plan to focus on the ones with the reported highest fare evasions, Clarke said. He specifically mentioned Silver Spring, Minnesota, Anacostia, New Carrolton, Fort Totten, Pentagon City and Friendship Heights.
“We are going to be out in force, enforcing fares,” Clarke said, referring to law enforcement actions. “We prefer to have no citations. We prefer to not remove someone from a bus. We definitely don’t want it to escalate to an arrest, but we will enforce the fares.”
“People will pay the fare, or they will be taken off the bus. If they refuse to comply with the officer, they will be arrested. They’re not going to be arrested for fare evasion, they’re going to be arrested for failure to comply or other things. Since we launched this campaign on Sunday, we’ve had almost 400 citations on bus and we’ve arrested five people with outstanding warrants,” Clarke told the press.
In Maryland and Virginia, fare evasion can count as a crime, whereas in Washington, D.C., it is a civil offense, according to WMATA webpage updated as of May 16. Fare evaders may incur fines of up to $50 in D.C. and up to $100 in Maryland or Virginia.
Clarke gave an example of how they will target fare evasion. “An officer might be in a patrol car watching cameras on the bus in real time, and then there’s an officer at a stop further up. They will then radio to that officer and say, ‘These four people didn’t pay.’ That [officer] hits that bus stop. They’ll remove them,” he told reporters. “We are going to be very innovative. I think this is the first in the country to do this.”