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California's mass transit agencies are taking a stand against the "manspreaders" and seat hogs of the world.
San Francisco's Bay Area Rapid Transit board voted to adopt a "one ticket, one seat" ordinance last week, which will fine people up to $500 for repeat seat hogging offenses. Los Angeles is expected to follow suit, according to Reuters.
Patrons on San Francisco's BART will be given a warning for taking up too much room on the train. Then they'll be fined $100 for the first violation, $200 if they're caught again within a year, and $500 for each time they repeat the offense within five years. For the next six months, BART is running a public education campaign to tell people about the new rules.
In other words, this would not be allowed:
By all means, #manspread to your heart's content. #manspreading #caughtintheact pic.twitter.com/38VWS9BB7v
— Linnie Greene (@linnieVII) March 30, 2016
The board hopes the penalty will save space during BART's busiest hours, when more than 50,000 people use the mass transit service daily. It will only be enforced between 6 am and 10 am, and 3 pm and 7 pm. The penalty is not meant to target people with luggage or the homeless, BART Director Joel Keller told the San Francisco Chronicle: "People pay a lot of money for a seat. In those rare cases where we have some knucklehead who refuses to give up a seat, at least an officer has authority to write a ticket."
Manspreaders and seat hoggers have increasingly become frustrations for the growing population that relies on public transportation. New York's subway has launched public service campaigns against the phenomenon in the past. During her time at Mic, Vox's Liz Plank explored the world of manspreading on a busy New York subway to figure out how gender plays a role in the space-intrusive act:
