Students can now ride Sacramento Regional Transit light rail and buses for free for the next year.
The new program, called RydeFreeRT, kicked off Tuesday. It's good for students from transitional kindergarten to 12th grade who live or go to school within the transit district's service area.
SacRT's Jessica Gonzalez says they heard from many schools that transportation is a major problem.
“This is really going to help a lot of parents out there that struggle on a daily basis getting their kid to school, or getting them to an internship or to some sports events, or really doing different events on the weekends,” Gonzalez said.
She said the city of Sacramento is contributing $1 million to help pay for the program with some of the funding coming from Measure U, the sales tax increase.
Several area school districts and the cities of Folsom, Citrus Heights, and Rancho Cordova are also contributing.
Gonzalez said they hope the program can turn the younger generation into lifelong public transit users.
“We're definitely thinking this is going to have a positive impact on ridership and also really start students off riding public transit and building public transit riders for life,” she said.
CapRadio provides a trusted source of news because of you. As a nonprofit organization, donations from people like you sustain the journalism that allows us to discover stories that are important to our audience. If you believe in what we do and support our mission, please donate today.