Charles Allen’s big public transit dreams for the nation’s capital are starting to turn into reality. Allen, a member of the D.C. Council since 2015, saw his bill that will create free bus rides across the city become law late last month. The Metro for D.C. Amendment Act of 2022 makes Washington the largest city in the country to go fare-free as the movement picks up steam nationwide. All bus rides starting in the district on the Metrobus system could be fare free as soon as this summer, down from the $2 flat fare that currently exists. The law — which includes the free bus service along with expanded 24-hour service and other improvements — comes with a price tag for the city of $11 million this fiscal year and rises past $47 million in fiscal year 2026. This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. How did you figure out the payments that D.C. will make to WMATA to compensate for free fares, and how are you thinking about any need for more drivers and other maintenance improvements with expected increases in ridership? We worked with WMATA to understand what would be the difference from a fare perspective if they were to no longer collect at the fare box on buses as they're running in DC for the riders that they have. We expect that we will actually increase ridership overall based on experience from other cities that have done this exact same thing. If your bus is 60 percent full and now you make it 80 percent full, there's no actual increased cost for that increased ridership unless the increased ridership is so great that we now have to get an extra bus on that route. And we would just need to make sure we fund that because that's a pretty straightforward challenge to overcome. Is there any risk in going all the way fare free here in a way that’s built on budget surpluses, should there be an economic downturn of sorts in the future? I kind of heard two questions in there. One was, should we pilot this before we go full bear. To that question, I would say we already piloted this. During the pandemic, we made our entire bus system fare-free across the whole system. And it worked. It got our essential workers moving and got our city moving. To the question about should we do this because there might at some point be an economic downturn, that would be the case for any program. As a policymaker, I would have to make all kinds of decisions about how late the hours are for the rec centers to Medicaid benefits to something like a fare-free system. So while we want to be very careful to make sure that's not going to happen, this would be no different than any other decision I've got to make when it comes to a budget. Given that you hope and expect bus ridership to increase in D.C. as a result of this law, are neighboring counties and towns concerned that they will have to further subsidize Metrorail? I haven't heard that [concern]. What we believe is going to happen based on other cities’ experience with a fare-free bus is that we're going to increase ridership not just on the bus, but on the rail. We're going to start connecting people to rail because not everybody has just a one-seat ride, and if we're now able to make that faster, and more convenient, and free, we start to see some people being able to shift and get onto Metro. What I've heard from more from Virginia and Maryland is actually a lot of local elected officials are really excited about us doing this. The local jurisdictions, they would like to go fare-free on their buses as well, but they've got to work with their state capitals and their state budget to do that. I have heard some people say they're excited about it, but they also know that it's going to be very popular, it's going to be successful here and so it's going to create pressure on them to make similar moves to their bus system. The bill passed the Council unanimously but didn’t get the mayor’s signature. Were you surprised by the mayor’s stance? Yes, I was a little surprised. But, you know, we're going to work through it. She is somebody who has been a supporter and champion for our transit system. She helped create the kids ride free program. I think she gets it and I think she understands how important transit is. I would love to have had her be enthusiastically in support of this. But she did ultimately support it – she did not veto the legislation. So it now moves forward and I am committed to working with her and with DDOT and with WMATA to make sure it's successful.
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