MTA wasting $1M to study psychology of fare beaters as agency cries poverty, pushes for congestion pricing

They’re bending over backwards to waste cash on turnstile jumping.The MTA is planning to spend up to $1 million grant money on a study that they hope will help them understand the mindset of the average fare evader, The Post has learned.

The pricy research – which comes as the authority is crying poverty and pushing for a detested congestion pricing plan — is being blasted by critics as a huge waste that will only tell them what anyone with common sense already knows about scofflaws.“They cry poverty when they’re forcing New Yorkers to pay ridiculous tolls to drive into Manhattan, yet somehow they manage to find enough money to pay for these inane studies,” City Council Member Joann Ariola (R-Queens) told The Post.“Somebody please make it make sense.”According to a contract proposal posted onto the MTA website Dec 6, the transit agency is hoping the research will give them enough insight into the “historically high” practice of fare evasion that they will make a dent in a crime that costs them some $800 million annually.The behavioral study could cost between $500,000 and $1 million in money that they are getting from the feds.The agency said in the proposal that they had already done some of their own research into people who skip the $2.90 fare — and have already categorized them as either “opportunists,” “rebels,” “idealists,” “youth,” “unintentional” or “low-income” They said they had found “rebels,” idealists,” and the more obvious “low income” brackets are most likely not to pay.The “Rebels” — usually middle to high school students — do it because they “think its cool and edgy not to pay,” the agency found.The “idealists” who can be of any age don’t feel “obligated to pay” because of their beliefs.But for others described as “low income” — its as simple as they “struggle to pay.”The agency came up with these observations at no additional cost to tax payers — and did not...