The NYT reported recently that the rollout of more impermeable ticket gates have noticeably reduced the proportion of unstable people on the subway.

Not everyone who fare evades is unstable, obviously, but the article suggested that a high proportion of the unstable were fare evaders, so their reduction was an unexpected corollary benefit of the new gates. (I assume this would conceptually clash with the effort to make public transport free.)

Curious to hear from anyone with recent NY subway experience with thoughts to share on this.