Metro's Kids Ride Free program allowing D.C. students to get to and from school has faced low usage and inconsistent distribution of free metro cards. Now, some parents and students worry this could lead to unwanted run-ins with police.
, Metro has started issuing tickets to riders who try to ride without paying. But the campaign — an effort to reverse a pandemic-era rise in fare evasion — has magnified problems in a program that allows the city’s youngest commuters to ride free.The District does not have a fleet of yellow school buses, so Kids Ride Free was developed to give students a reliable way to get to school. But the program, designed in part to curb truancy, has been challenged for years by low participation.
Now, with the city’s focus on fare evasion, the stakes of riding without a card are higher. Station managers have not been directed to deny entry to students who don’t have their Kids Ride Free cards, said Ian Jannetta, a Metro spokesman, but transit police issued three citations to students during the first two weeks of fare enforcement last month — two in Virginia and one in Maryland.
For years, students used DC One fare cards — which served as an all-in-one student identification, library card and Metro pass — to board public transit. Now, they are issued special SmarTrip cards that are preloaded with their fare. This year the District is paying $365 for each registered student, plus $2 for each plastic card ordered, said German Vigil, a spokesman for the District Department of Transportation, which manages the program.With the exception of prekindergartners, nearly every D.
There are several reasons a student may never use or even receive a card. Many forgo public transit, opting instead to walk, bike or get driven to school. Some have been slow to return to public transportation since the peak of the pandemic. Others, after years with little enforcement, are used to boarding trains and buses without using their Kids Ride Free passes and, before now, had no incentive to participate in the program, according to interviews with students.
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