Two years ago, RoadRunner Transit in Las Cruces introduced its Zero Fare policy for passengers, joining other cities across the country offering free fares for their public transportation systems. Scott Brocato reports on how the free bus rides may be making an impact.
Eric Husom been a RoadRUNNER Transit rider since high school. Now in his early 50s, he was frank when asked how the Zero Fare service has impacted him.
“I mean, it’s great. But I don’t ride the bus daily like a lot of people do,” he said. “But it’s nice! I think it’s great for those of lower income that need the transportation. So I think (Zero Fare) is a great idea.”
Two years ago, the transit’s zero fare service was implemented for passengers.
Mike Bartholomew, a former archeologist, has been RoadRunner Transit’s director since 2002.
“The zero-fare started at the very end of November 2022, and it very likely has led to quite an increase in our ridership,” Bartholomew said. “We've surpassed by quite a bit what ridership was prior to the COVID pandemic.”
Bartholomew said he estimates that in fiscal year 2024, RoadRUNNER serviced just under 800,000 people. There are some challenges facing the transit service, particularly with some passengers, according to Bartholomew.
“98% of them are no problem,” he said. “There are some issues where we have passengers behaving badly. When we did implement the Zero Fare program, we revamped our passenger code of conduct. And we're actually looking at reviewing that, probably even making our code of conduct a little bit stricter--more in line with what we’re finding other transit systems are doing as well.”
Bartholomew said federal funding helps to offset the costs of the Zero Fare service. About of third of their funds are from “formula funds”, in which Congress uses a formula before approving a transportation bill.
“Right now we're getting right in the vicinity of $3 million in federal funds, formula funds, that we can use, mainly for operating,” said Bartholomew. “They've had formula funding as long as I've been in the transit business, so it's a program that no doubt is going to continue.”
Bartholomew discussed how much of their annual budget compensates for Zero Fare, and if there are any budgetary losses with the program.
“Well, the city has to match our federal funding for operating 50/50,” he said. “So for every dollar those the feds put in, the city has to put in a dollar too. So anytime we take away revenue, the city has to make up that difference, generally, in the match. It's not really a significant loss. You know, we have about an $8 million operating budget a year and we were getting from our fares less than $200,000 a year. So there is a loss by going Zero Fare. But we feel that the benefit to the community outweighs that loss.”
With Zero Fare in place for the foreseeable future, RoadRUNNER Transit is looking ahead to the new year, with plans to add six more battery electric buses in June 2025.
