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One of our major ridership challenges is waiting in the summer heat.
And it's very easy for people to avoid paying their fare.

Want to fix both? Then we could enclose the stations. This would give us a "closed system" in which fare would be required for entrance. This would also give waiting riders a station that can be air conditioned and protect them from the sun. (It could even be made convertible so that the roof or high windows could open in the winter.)

Curitaba has semi-enclosed stations for its BRT riders [above image], so it's completely reasonable to expect this from our light rail systems, especially considering our climate.