Mayor Karen Bass Announces Free Metro For Students — Why Not Free Transit For All?

On Oct 31, LA Mayor Karen Bass joined regional leaders in South Los Angeles to promote a program for young people to ride metro for free, part of a broader effort to make metro more accessible for all.

“Cost should never be a barrier to accessibility or opportunity, so I want to encourage students in Los Angeles to participate in the GoPass Pilot Program. If you’re a LAUSD or Los Angeles Community College student you are eligible for free, unlimited rides on Metro’s buses and trains,” Bass said. “With thousands of young people experiencing homelessness and living in poverty, the GoPass program is more important than ever to help make sure young people can get to school and make other important trips.”

Bass thanked LAUSD Superintendent Alberto Carvalho and Metro CEO Stephanie Wiggins for “their work to increase accessibility through GoPass,” adding, “I look forward to seeing more young people benefit from increased accessibility and to the GoPass program’s continued expansion to more communities in the region.”

GoPass participation is now over 350,000 registered students from 1,570 participating schools in 115 participating school districts (including public districts, charter networks, community college and private schools). The GoPass Pilot is phase one of Metro’s Fareless System Initiative, which began in response to a sharp decline in ridership early on in the COVID epidemic. It’s a strategic effort to build transit ridership and support communities that need help with transportation needs the most.

But the model of free public transportation could go much farther, to include everyone, as it does in the whole countries of Luxembourg and Malta.

Free public transit is an example of public goods whose logic and benefits are laid out in “The Privatization of Everything,” co-authored by Highland Park resident Donald Cohen.

“This is a great start for Los Angeles and puts us on the path to meet several of our most basic needs: the ability to get places (mobility) and the urgency of reducing automobile greenhouse gas emissions,” Cohen said. “Free transit helps solve those problems — removing economic obstacles to using public transport and getting people out of their cars. That helps everyone — whether they ride the bus or not,” he explained.

Climate benefits alone are numerous, Kevin Shen of the Union of Concerned Scientists explained. “Transit investments push our communities to be more accessible no matter how you travel by encouraging more efficient clustered development. So even if you never ride a bus, transit investments help you go places while driving less, grouping trips together, or making it easier to walk or bike,” he wrote. “The impact of these changes to our communities can reduce vehicle travel by anywhere from 5-12 times as much as the benefits from directly replaced car trips.”

“Cities across the country that are doing this are finding that they save funds by eliminating cumbersome fare collection systems and that transit use is increasing,” Cohen said. “It’s the right move for the Mayor and should set the stage for the next step—universal free transit.”

An effort is underway to provide federal assistance in doing this. In June 2020, Massachusetts Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley and Senator Ed Markey proposed a federal bill to establish a $5 billion federal grant program to support localities that operate fare-free bus and rail transit services. They reintroduced the bill in April 2023.