July 31, 2025
Almost 90% of Albuquerque’s bus riders have family incomes of lower than $35,000 per 12 months, and an analogous proportion don’t have entry to a car
Sabina Wohlmuth’s days used to incorporate lengthy, sizzling walks throughout the town of Albuquerque, generally two or three miles at a time. Wohlmuth relied on the bus, however when she was quick on money, she walked as an alternative of paying the fare.
“It was solely a greenback for a one-way journey, however nonetheless, if you happen to’re homeless and also you’re poor, that’s some huge cash,” Wohlmuth mentioned.
Wohlmuth now takes the bus on daily basis to her job at McDonald’s, to the shop, and to the sober dwelling facility the place she stays. And every of these bus journeys price Wohlmuth zero {dollars}.
Albuquerque made zero-fare transit everlasting in November 2023, turning into one of many largest U.S. cities to implement zero-fare transit. A few 12 months and a half later, transit officers and advocates say the zero-fare program is working as meant, by serving the town’s lowest-income residents. As another mid-sized cities stroll again their plans to make transit free, in Albuquerque, this system is sticking round.
“This can be a public service, and the folks that we serve actually depend on it,” says Leslie Keener, director of the Metropolis of Albuquerque’s transit division. “I feel it’s a approach to actually simply open up entry and create mobility so that individuals have the chance to have some upward motion.”
Mobility for survival
Almost 90% of Albuquerque’s bus riders have family incomes of lower than $35,000 per 12 months, and an analogous proportion don’t have entry to a car, Subsequent Metropolis experiences. Making it simpler for the town’s lowest-income residents to get round is a part of what Christopher Ramirez calls “the primary goal of public transit.”
“Transit fairness is giving the folks which are most in want the sources, after which constructing out different facets of public transit, ” says Ramirez, the co-founder and government director of Collectively for Brothers. In 2017, the neighborhood group performed a neighborhood well being influence evaluation that led to a concentrate on transit fairness advocacy. Beginning in 2019, the neighborhood group has led a coalition to push at no cost transit in Albuquerque.
Many bus riders in Albuquerque are experiencing homelessness and depend on the bus to get to medical appointments, social service suppliers, work, and to go to family and friends.
Charles Battiste says he takes the bus on daily basis. On a Wednesday in February, Battiste was driving the bus west on Central Avenue, the town’s foremost thoroughfare, from a methadone remedy program to a lodge the place he’d lately secured short-term housing on the opposite aspect of city.
Q, a 32-year-old who has been unhoused since they have been 18, additionally rode the bus down Central Avenue that day in the wrong way, to select up some medication for a cough at a hospital. Like Battiste, Q depends on the bus each day.
“Transportation comes up often as one of many prime boundaries for our purchasers and people we serve in accessing well being care, jobs, housing, the entire issues that we all know are the structural options to homelessness,” says Rachel Biggs, chief technique officer at Albuquerque Well being Look after the Homeless.
“We all know folks in Albuquerque are stretched actually skinny, even the oldsters who aren’t already dwelling and experiencing homelessness. The numbers of individuals dwelling in poverty and who want transportation help simply proceed to develop, and we’ve quite a lot of transit-dependent residents.”
Biggs says her group beforehand spent about $50,000 a 12 months buying bus passes for purchasers so they might make appointments, search for housing, and get to work. This created a “actually cumbersome system” that concerned purchasers shuttling from the town’s shelter on the far west aspect of city to Well being Look after the Homeless’s workplace early within the morning to select up a free each day bus cross, then “turning round and getting again on the bus” to achieve their locations for the day. Month-to-month passes have been much less possible due to the frequency that individuals experiencing homelessness misplaced their passes amid encampment sweeps, Biggs says.
“Particularly once you’re experiencing homelessness, time is a really worthwhile useful resource. So to have the ability to get round city and never need to undergo all of the hoop-jumping, so as to now hop on and hop off, it does enhance entry to all of the providers and all of the issues that somebody would want to finish their homelessness,” Biggs says.
For different Albuquerque residents, free public transit serves as a lifeline, a significant mobility choice when cash is tight or different transportation falls by way of. One 67-year-old girl discovered herself on the bus after her automobile was repossessed as a consequence of difficulties making ends meet lately. “It’s good to have one thing that’s free, once you’ve at all times pushed, you’ve at all times paid insurance coverage, and also you pay for nearly all the things,” she says.
Erica Grier, who works as a part-time caregiver and makes use of a Part 8 voucher to afford housing, makes use of the bus on daily basis. She estimates she beforehand spent at the least $20 a month on the bus, cash that’s now again in her pocket to pay for groceries and different month-to-month bills. “It’s service that the town gives, similar to how the library is free,” she says.
Keener says the town has seen ridership shift for the reason that pandemic launched a brand new period of distant work and Albuquerque launched free transit: fewer commuters, and extra folks experiencing homelessness who can now extra simply use the bus to achieve their locations or who’re utilizing it as shelter from the weather.
Recovering ridership
Ridership has steadily elevated since Albuquerque first piloted zero fares in 2022, with general ridership up 20% prior to now three years. Metropolis officers credit score the zero fare program with serving to ABQ Experience’s ridership numbers creep again up towards pre-pandemic figures.
Like Albuquerque, Kansas Metropolis, Missouri, made headlines when it turned the primary main U.S. metropolis to go fare-free in 2020. However 5 years later, the Kansas Metropolis Council voted to convey again $2 fares in an try to stave off main service cuts amid a price range shortfall.
However for now, at the least, it looks like Albuquerque’s free fares are sticking round.
Fare income beforehand “wasn’t a lot of something,” in response to Keener, and introduced in about $3 million in income earlier than the price of amassing fare was deducted. That represented a drop within the bucket for the transit company’s $67 million annual price range, comprised of about $23 million from the town’s transportation infrastructure tax and about $8 million from the county and different regional authorities entities. The remainder of the price range is sponsored from the town’s Basic Fund to the tune of about $30 million every year.
The town’s lately accepted price range for fiscal 12 months 2026 saved this subsidy, and the town “stands behind its Zero Fares system,” in response to Keener, who added that the company’s focus proper now’s on increasing routes and growing service frequency. ABQ Experience served seven million riders in 2024, which is about 78% of the company’s pre-pandemic ridership numbers, however ABQ Experience can be working at solely 64% of its pre-pandemic service, with diminished frequency on many routes and a few headways of as much as an hour.
ABQ Experience is within the technique of implementing a revamped “restoration community” that goals to convey the company again to about 95% of pre-pandemic service, in response to Keener, since returning to 100% of service ranges wouldn’t be financially possible. The proposed restoration community contains streamlining and restructuring some routes to offset the prices of accelerating frequency and night and weekend service. The reconfiguring is predicted to extend the variety of residents inside a half-mile of a route with frequent service.
Ramirez views increasing frequency as the following step after making buses free.
In accordance with Ramirez, ABQ Experience has lengthy tried to do “so much with a little bit,” with the restoration plan elevating questions of whether or not the company ought to concentrate on having as many routes as attainable or bettering service in high-passenger areas. “We want extra frequency within the locations that want it most,” he says.
“The bus needs to be for everyone. It needs to be to attach individuals who want it most to get the place they should go,” he says. “It’s folks getting to colleges, it’s folks attending to work, it’s folks getting open air, it’s folks getting meals, it’s folks attending to healthcare.”
This story was supported with grant funding from The Neal Peirce Basis.
This story was produced by Subsequent Metropolis and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.
RELATED CONTENT: SEPTA Honors Black Trailblazers In Public Transportation