Right, the worst IS the Mitre line (new beggar every 5 minutes!). But even in the regular subte system, the begging can be pretty crazy. At one stop, I needed to buy my 90 centavo ticket and there's a beggar standing right in front of the the ticket window with his cup on the counter (obviously hoping passengers will throw their 10 centavo change in his cup). There's a police officer standing less than 10 feet away and doing nothing to discourage this.

In NYC, the gov't found that cracking down on such behaviors strengthened civil society and reduced overall crime. The most famous example was eliminating the "squee-gee guys" who would wash your car windows (whether you wanted them to or not) at red lights. At least BA's current version of this is more pleasant: the guys in the street do a little magic trick in front of you as you wait for the light to change!

There's just a fine line in a city between order and chaos. I hope the gov't realizes that tourists generally like order. Nobody likes to be constantly hassled.