free fares?

The War on Cars podcast recent episode, EPISODE 156: Should the Bus Be Free? With Yonah Freemark, brings expertise on the question of free fares, or not, and is well worth a listen. Though there is a focus on New York City (the two podcasts hosts live in NYC), many of the ideas are applicable to any city transit system (‘But Sacramento is not New York!’. Turns out Sacramento is not like any place). Yonah Freemark has a wide knowledge of the practices of transit agencies around the world.

STAR does not have an overall policy on free fares. We do have some related policies:

We are in complete support of the RydeFree RT program, which provides free transit passes to students (K-12) in the county, with funding from a variety of sources, including SacRT operations. See category: RydeFree RT for several posts. Every transit advocacy organization in the region is in strong support of this program. As well as many politicians, nonprofits, and agencies.

We support reduced fares for disabled, seniors, veterans, medicare, and low-income riders. SacRT has long had discounts for disabled and seniors through various fare mechanisms, and recently added veterans and medicare through the CalIPT Tap2Ride program, which will be integrated with SacRT’s new Transit Connect app (Coming Soon: SacRT’s New “Transit Connect” Fare Payment App). When the integration is complete, sometime in 2026, the same fares will be available in the app and Tap2Ride, across buses, light rail, and SacRT GO. SacRT has not offered, and currently has no plan to offer, discounts for low-income riders. STAR believe low-income riders should have the same 50% discount as the other categories. Roseville Transit and El Dorado Transit will soon be joining Tap2Ride.

Our partner transit advocacy organization, SacTRU (Sacramento Transit Riders Union) does support free fares, initially as a pilot or for some routes, but eventually system-wide. We are not aware if any of the other transit advocacy organizations have a policy on free fares.

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