Passengers wait to board a bus at the Ronstadt Transit Center in downtown Tucson. Rides have been free since March 2020.
Sun Tran has been providing free rides to its passengers since the pandemic began in March of 2020, thanks to funds from the federal CARES Act.
The free trips are scheduled to wrap up at the end of this year, but Mayor Regina Romero says she wants to extend them until at least the end of the fiscal year, June 30, 2022.
"It really is something that is not just good for working families and students and seniors that can't afford to purchase a vehicle, but it's actually good for our economy and it's good for climate resiliency purposes," Romero told Arizona Public Media.
Romero says her long-term vision is to work with public and private partners with the goal of making free trips permanent, as has been done in other cities such as Chapel Hill, North Carolina and Missoula, Montana.
Others, such as Albuquerque, New Mexico are beginning a new pilot program of free rides on January 1, 2022.
Romero says she will discuss the topic during the last council meeting of the year on Tuesday December 21st.
If the free fares are extended, it will buy time for the longer conversation with Pima County, Pima Community College, the University of Arizona and other organizations and employers to study the potential of keeping the free rides indefinitely.
"I've received so many email messages and calls and comments from the community that they're actually jumping on the bus and then jumping on the streetcar to get to where they need to get to, where before they didn't even explore it," Romero added.
Sun Tran says the city loses about $700,000 each month in revenue by not charging fares, but it was able to afford free drives thanks to the federal money.
Romero says funding sources and other issues will be part of the in-depth analysis about the possibility of making Tucson one of the nation's other free public transportation cities.
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