D.C. could become the first major city in the United States to offer free city bus trips for all riders.
For many people, buses are their only option for getting around town. For others, it’s a way to help avoid traffic congestion. Those bus rides could be free starting next year — if the D.C. Council gives approval to the idea, which was proposed by Ward 6 Council Member Charles Allen and Council Chair Phil Mendelson.
The Council had already signaled they want to give D.C. residents $100 a month in fare cards for Metrorail, but now the Council also is proposing spending tens of millions of dollars a year to fund free Metrobus rides as well.
These are big, bold concepts that will encourage ridership throughout the region.
Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) statement
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If the bill is approved, every Metrobus ride that originates in D.C. would be free to anyone, even if your destination is outside of the District.
"We will be the first major city in the United States that will have free bus service," Mendelson said.
The proposed legislation would also fund the expansion of overnight service for 12 major bus routes, including as the Georgia Avenue route.
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"It's part of D.C. being a 24-hour city, and it's going to be crucial to our recovery," Allen said.
However, the measure would not include rides on the D.C. Circulator bus. Rides on the Circulator were free for several months in 2019. After the pandemic began, Mayor Muriel Bowser wanted to again make the Circulator free to ride, but the Council shut down that idea. Mendelson now says he's open to revisiting that matter.
A spokesperson for the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) issued a statement, saying: "We appreciate the D.C. Council's leadership and commitment to making transit more accessible for our customers. These are big, bold concepts that will encourage ridership throughout the region. We look forward to working with the council and the mayor on this this legislation as it moves forward."
The Metro For DC bill will advance to a Council committee vote Tuesday with the new additions about free bus fares and overnight service.
The free bus rides and expanded late night service would cost D.C. taxpayers about $42 million per year. If approved, those changes would begin next July.
"It's kind of interesting. A lot of people just jump on anyway, but for me, a person who pays every time, that would work," one Metrobus rider said. "I don't know what it would do for the budget overall, but for me personally, the individual," she continued, adding a little cheer, "free always works."
The Council is also considering providing all D.C. residents with $100 monthly subsidies to use on Metrorail, buses outside of D.C. or anywhere else SmarTrip fare cards are accepted.
This part of the plan is similar to what was previously announced. However, if approved, those subsidies would not start going out until late 2024.
The effort to provide the SmarTrip card subsidies has been in the works longer than the free buses and was already approved in Council committee, but that part of the legislation would take longer to go into effect. There are a couple of reasons behind that: First, providing residents with funds for Metrorail would cost more than three times what the bus plan would. In addition, implementation for the Metrorail fare plan would be much more complex, involving issuing the cards or and setting up a system for residents to apply.
The free bus plan would be more simple to implement. Metrobus would just stop charging for rides that start in D.C., and the District would pay a flat fee of $42 million each year to WMATA.
“When I introduced Metro For DC almost three years ago, it was because I thought we could make public transit both more affordable and also dramatically improve service. Now that we’re recovering from the pandemic, it’s clear this would be a win for riders, a win for D.C.’s businesses, and a win for WMATA,” Allen said according to a news release Thursday. “Making the bus fare free for all of D.C. is the type of transformational change that we can lead, with a focus on equity and economic recovery. It’ll make a difference keeping buses moving faster on our streets and in the monthly budgets of thousands of D.C. families.”
Some smaller cities — such as Olympia, Washington, and Chapel Hill, North Carolina — have been operating similar programs to provide free bus rides for the past few years and have seen ridership increase, but did not see car use decline as much as they would have liked.
