Good morning, and welcome to the Essential California newsletter. Somehow, it’s Dec. 1, 2022. I’m Ryan Fonseca.
For me, riding public transit in L.A. is simply a nice alternative to driving my car. Sure, it might take me a little longer to get where I want to go — like downtown L.A., a Dodgers game or the Hollywood Bowl — but it’s a fair trade when I want to enjoy a day or night out free of traffic troubles and parking woes.
But I’m privileged when it comes to transportation. I have a reliable car if I would need to drive to work, but for now I’m writing this to you from home. Millions of fellow Californians don’t have those luxuries.
For them, public transit is a necessity to get to work or school, run essential errands and access medical care. All those trip fares add up. And with roughly 70% of riders on L.A. County’s transit system considered low income, it can create a serious financial burden.
That’s one reason why a growing, vocal coalition of transit riders and mobility advocates want transit agencies to stop charging people to ride buses and trains.
One of those groups is the Alliance for Community Transit, or ACT-LA. It calls public transit “the community infrastructure that connects us to jobs, school, healthcare and family.”
“Investing in universal fareless transit is key to racial and economic justice for low-income Black, Latinx, immigrant and youth who make up Metro’s ridership and depend on Metro for transportation,” the group wrote on its website. “It will also grow transit ridership and aid Los Angeles in our fight for better air quality, climate solutions and less traffic congestion.”
This morning, ACT-LA, fellow advocates and transit riders will again be making their case to leaders of California’s largest transit system. The L.A. County Metropolitan Transportation Authority board is holding a public meeting and is set to vote on changes to the current fare structure. Among other changes, the board could approve a new fare-capping system, making trips within a given time period free after a rider has paid a certain dollar amount.
Metro staff had initially recommended raising the base fare from $1.75 to $2 but walked back that suggestion after public outcry. At the same time the agency has contemplated raising fares, its staff has also been exploring the possibility of going fareless.
In fact, hundreds of thousands of K-12 and community college students can ride for free through a pilot program (though individual school districts have to agree to some cost-sharing, meaning L.A. Metro still gets revenue through the program).
And a notable percentage of transit riders around the state are able to ride at reduced rates. Transit agencies including those in L.A., the Bay Area, San Diego and Sacramento offer discounts — some have pricing based on age; others lower the costs for riders with disabilities or who qualify as low income.
Gov. Gavin Newsom has expressed interest in making transit free, though he ultimately vetoed a bill this year that would have created a program for K-12 and college students to ride for free statewide.
Also noteworthy: Fares make up a tiny sliver of L.A. Metro’s annual budget. For the current fiscal year, which runs through June 2023, fare revenues represent a measly 1.2% of the agency’s projected resources. Of course, some agencies rely on fares more than others. For example, BART riders’ fares paid for about two-thirds of that agency’s operating costs, but that was before the pandemic tanked ridership.
We Californians are already paying for public transit, even if we don’t use it. We pay taxes to the state and the feds, and those governments pay out grants to local transit agencies. And sometimes voters opt to tax themselves more, like in L.A. County, where residents decided to boost transit funding via sales tax increases like with Measure M and Measure R.
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