Sacramento Regional Transit offered students free rides. Here’s how it turned out
Sacramento Regional Transit officials say student ridership on light rail and buses more than doubled last month compared to the previous January, thanks to the agency’s decision last year to let students ride free.
Buses and light rail trains carried 176,500 student riders in January, more than doubling the 86,000 rides from the same month a year ago. That was an improvement over December, when student ridership was up 76 percent from the previous December.
City officials are promoting the RydeFreeRT experiment as a way to improve school attendance for students, especially from families with financial difficulties, and make mornings easier for working parents who otherwise would drive their children to school.
“One of our top priorities ... is offering more opportunities for young people,” Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg said. “Having a free transit pass makes it easier to get to that paid internship, to that sports practice or that after school program. It’s amazing to see so many students take advantage of their new freedom to move around the Sacramento region.”
University of Texas, Austin researchers are studying the program’s impacts on school attendance and out-of-school activities, and will issue a report this summer.
Overall, SacRT ridership is up an estimated 6 percent system-wide this fiscal year, SacRT officials said. Most of that was from increased student riders. Paid ridership increased marginally as well, officials said.
The agency has not committed to continuing the test program. SacRT officials said the program is scheduled to end in September, but the agency is working on obtaining more funding in hopes of continuing the free-ride program indefinitely.
The program has been supported in its first year-plus with a $1 million grant from the city of Sacramento as well as funds from other cities and school districts.
SacRT General Manager Henry Li said the agency believes the new ridership will translate to more paid riders in the future as students familiar with transit continue to ride as adults.
“Research shows that people who ride public transportation at a young age are more likely to use it as adults,” Li said.
Information on the program is available at RydeFreeRT.com. Most students automatically received a RydeFreeRT sticker with their student ID. For students not attending a participating school, free stickers and cards are available at public libraries and SacRT’s Customer Service and Sales Center.