The Legislature is considering giving everyone age 18 and under free rides on public transportation. But will that really create a generation of lifetime riders?
It’s mid-afternoon at the 4th Avenue/Wayne Hultgren light rail station on Sacramento’s blue line. Alexandra Curtis, a senior at nearby C.K. McClatchy High School, glances up the tracks, awaiting a south-bound train. But the ride’s not going to cost her anything.
Under a new Sacramento transit program, kids from pre-kindergarten to high school get to ride the region’s buses and light rail for free year-round, at any time of day. Student ridership has soared in the months since the program was introduced. Overall ridership is also up. Amid a nationwide trend of declining transit ridership, Sacramento’s success makes it an outlier.
Now, lawmakers are considering a proposal that tries to emulate the Sacramento Regional Transit District’s program statewide. Assembly Bill 1350, from San Diego Democrat Lorena Gonzalez, would require all California transit agencies to offer free passes to anyone 18 or under in order to get state funding. Making transit more affordable is one motive, but the main point is combating climate change by creating a new generation of lifetime public transit users.
Full article https://calmatters.org/transpo...rnia-climate-change/
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