Metro Offering New Incentives, Including $2 Rides, Discounts and Service Improvements to Get Riders Back
Metro has added some new discounts and scheduling to try to get people back onto trains and buses starting this Labor Day. They include:
- $2 fare for weekend train rides, no mater how far you are going.
- Discounting monthly passes by 40% for 30 days in September as workers head back to the office.
- Discount day and weeklong rail and bus passes by 50%. These would also be temporary 30-day discounts to woo riders back to the system.
- Indefinitely eliminating the $2 cost to transfer from bus to rail service.
- Lowers the seven-day regional bus pass cost to $12 ($6 for seniors and disabled people)
For service changes, Metro is focusing on providing more consistent service throughout the day.
- Peak hour service would have trains every five to ten minutes.
- Rail would stay open until midnight seven days a week starting in July and increase to 1 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays starting this fall.
- The rail service should see 12-minute or less waits during most of the day.
- 20 of the busiest bus routes would see 12-minute or less waits during the day. Sixteen other bus lines would have service every 20 minutes or less.
In June the WTMA (The Washington Township Municipal Authority) shared how rail ridership was down 83 percent over 2019, and bus ridership was down 65 percent.
Proposed Grosvenor Metro Closure Met with Strong Opposition
As a result of a sharp decline of Metrorail ridership over the past 11 months due to the COVID-19 pandemic, unless they receive more federal funding, Metro will need to make service cuts, including 22 station closures. Metro is dealing with a budget deficit of about $210 million, with rail ridership down 90% due to the pandemic.
