Tucson Keeps Buses Fare-Free

Tucson, Arizona is offering free bus rides for at least another year as part of the city’s effort to expand public transit ridership, according to a piece in Yale Climate Connections. The city began offering free transit during the Covid-19 pandemic and has repeatedly renewed the program. 

But fare cost isn’t the only challenge to boosting ridership, Fátima Luna, Tucson’s Chief Resilience Officer, acknowledges. A lack of shade at nearly half of the city’s bus stops is another factor that prevents people from safely and comfortably riding buses. “So as part of a pilot project, the city will install shade structures and plant trees and other vegetation at a handful of stops. They’ll measure how these changes affect temperature — and plan to implement the most effective strategies more widely.”

Last year, Tucson began implementing a climate action plan to address extreme heat and provide cooling centers and other mitigation measures.