The MTA is suspending its EAGLE bus fare-enforcement teams after inspectors allegedly roughed up passengers in several disturbing incidents that were not reported promptly. Officials also acknowledged that the teams have failed to reduce fare evasion.
Transit chief Janno Lieber announced the move as the rate of bus fare evasion climbed from 36% in 2022 to 48% during the first half of 2026, despite the teams’ presence.
The suspension came one day after Kyle Taylor, a Brooklyn school dean, filed a $25 million lawsuit against the MTA. Taylor says EAGLE inspectors assaulted him earlier this month over an alleged failure to pay the $3 bus fare. The encounter was captured on video.
Passenger advocacy groups have condemned the incident. Lieber said the violence was never reported to his office.
He also said a separate harassment complaint involving MTA fare inspectors and a man aboard a Bronx bus was not escalated through the agency’s chain of command.
“I was not happy that leadership of the MTA and even New York City Transit didn’t even hear about that episode until more than a week afterwards,” Lieber said. “It now appears that there is another episode where that failure to timely report is even more extreme.”
Taylor’s attorney, Benjamin Pinczewski, rejected the explanation.
“How could they not have known about it? The MTA tried to cover this up,” he told The Post.
Lieber said he directed MTA security chief Michael Kemper, a 30-year NYPD veteran, to conduct a broad review of the program. The inquiry will examine how EAGLE inspectors are trained and how the roughly 350-member force reports incidents.
While announcing the EAGLE suspension late Thursday, Lieber also urged riders to pay their fares.
“We have to play by the rules or they start to fall apart,” he said.
EAGLE teams have inspected fares on Select Bus Service routes since 2008 and expanded their operations to local buses in 2023. Bus fare evasion nevertheless increased from 36% in 2022 to 43% in 2023, reaching 48% in the first half of 2026.
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MTA data puts the subway fare-evasion rate at about 10%.
The transit agency has said paid bus boardings rise by 7% when EAGLE teams are deployed.
Fare evasion on buses cost the MTA an estimated $568 million in 2024, the latest available figure, according to fiscal watchdog Citizens Budget Commission.
Lee, 30, of Manhattan, said he believes the fare-enforcement teams do not work.
“[They’re like] ‘Hey, can you show me your card?’ and I’m like ‘No, I can’t actually show you anything,’ and I just walk past them,” he said.
Lee described the teams as “a waste of money” and said he was pleased they had been removed, at least temporarily.
Stella Nathenson, 19, an NYU student who rides buses around Manhattan, called the teams “scary” and “unsettling.” She said many of the people she sees skipping fares are older adults.
“When people don’t pay the fare, half the time it’s usually a person with a walker or a cane,” she said.
She said broken card readers have kept her from paying.
“I have avoided paying twice, and it’s just because the card doesn’t work — which is probably something they should fix,” she said.
Bus rider Jaime Madrid, 75, of Manhattan said an EAGLE team wrongly ticketed him two years ago on the M34-SBS, and he had to send in his yellow card and bus number to get it tossed.
“They embarrass you,” he said. “They pull you out like a criminal. They pull on you and put you in the street.”
Mayor Zohran Mamdani ran on on a campaign promise of making city buses free, but the state-controlled MTA is mostly out of his hands, and he admitted in April that it wouldn’t happen this year.