For Star subscribers: We shouldn't let a $10 million gap in funding kill off the incredible convenience of free fares on Tucson's buses. Yeah, it means a few more weirdos, but overall, the program is working.
Tim Steller Take a Sun Tran bus these days and you're likely to notice a difference from the pre-pandemic days.I'm not talking about the occasional druggies — a bad change.As the Tucson City Council looks ahead to a June 30 deadline for the free-fare program that has existed since the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, a basic fact shows the program's success: More people are taking the bus.
About half of the $105 million annual cost is covered by $53 million from the city's general fund, and major additional contributions from federal grants and the Regional Transportation Authority. The state of Arizona contributes nothing. But there wasn't any movement, she reported:"The UA is not really seeing the benefit of being a big investor in public transit."
Riding a quiet No. 12 bus up South 12th Avenue, I spoke with Kathy Molina and Miguel Rodriguez, passengers who weren't together but were sitting in the far back corners of the bus. Different lines, different experiencesThis concern, I think, is what holds a lot of Tucsonans back from taking the bus: The drug-addicted or mentally ill people who sometimes ride and are disruptive, especially since the free fares eliminated that one small barrier to entry — a couple of bucks for a ride, or a bus pass.
Maxwell was to my left; to my right, Rebecca Bender chimed in that she doesn't like it, either, when people get on with 3 or 4 bags and fill up seats with them. But being a low income person, she said, she wants the bus to remain free anyway. Maxwell was fine with it either way. Sunnyside High School student Cleofas Ludlow told me he's been riding two buses per day, there and back, every day for more than a year, including on the notorious No. 18 line.
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