Mayor Regina Romero and the Tucson city council intended to discuss a transit task force’s findings and recommendations for keeping the city’s buses and streetcar free to ride during a study session Tuesday. Instead, Samuel Credio, the city’s director of public transit, and City Manager Michael Ortega, recommended reintroducing fares for Sun Link and Sun Express.
“I am frustrated and disappointed that we tried to go the route of having the task force kind of look at that and they were more interested in talking long-term vision for what our transit system should look like,” Ward 1 council member Lane Santa Cruz said.
The conversation ended with more questions than answers and the council once again requested that the task force come back with more background information and solutions for funding fares at the upcoming meeting March 19. The meeting starts at 1 p.m. and will stream live here.
Tucson hasn’t charged riders for using public transit since March 2020. Since then, the city has conducted studies, sought partners for alternative methods of funding, and done public outreach about whether and how fares should remain free.
Last spring, the city called for a public task force to study how to keep fares free. The city council also unanimously voted May 9 to “declare our intention to go fare-free transit.”
Before the transit discussion, Romero and the city council members left the council chamber for an executive session. The sparse audience of around ten people, including those attending in support of the continuation of a fare-free public transportation system, sat idle in the nearly empty room.
Yassin Ben Abdallah, a Tucson resident and free transit supporter, took the opportunity to strike up a conversation with one of the few government employees left behind about the importance of free public transit to him and his family.
“I do not want to deal with paying money for bus fares when I’m so busy paying money for other things in my life and for my family,” Abdallah said.
When the time came for Credio and Ortega to update the council and recommend they vote to reinstate fares for the Sun Link streetcar and Sun Express, there were more questions than answers.
“Last year we voted on our intent to remain fare free and I don’t know when our intent changed for us as a council,” Santa Cruz said.
Credio said if the city were to reinstate fares for these services, they’re looking at $2.1 to $1.4 million in revenue, depending on ridership decline, and it would take up to six months and over $400,000.
“It just sounds as though it’s a lot of work to pull in maybe $1.4 or maybe $2.1 million,” Romero said.
Ridership on Sun Link and Sun Express has increased dramatically, surpassing two million rides in Fiscal Year 2023. More than 70% of those riders were UA students, faculty and staff, according to Credio’s presentation.
But City Attorney Mike Rankin said the university isn’t interested in helping pay for the service to stay free because it can’t demonstrate the direct relationship between the expenditure and what it’s getting in return.
“Quite frankly I think they could get there if they could just have a metric that truly demonstrates the value of what they’re purchasing using those funds,” Rankin said.
Vice Mayor Kevin Dahl, who represents Ward 3, said free public transit for students is not just a matter of convenience or economic incentive, it’s a matter of safety. The Sun Link connects students on campus to downtown nightlife.
“It’s saving lives because people get on the street car and get to their dorms,” Dahl said.
According to a report finalized at the transit stakeholder meeting in November, the task force offered four recommendations for maintaining free fares which included taxing residents and charging partners like the UA.
Ortega said they’re still having trouble getting buy-in from other community partners and he fears an impending deficit in 2026. Right now, he thinks that fares are the only long-term solution.
“My concern and my challenge is that the 26th year is going to be tough,” Ortega said.
Santa Cruz pushed back, saying the council is currently focused on short-term funding to buy them time to look into the long term.
“I think that when we took that vote we were sending the message to you, city manager, that this is a core value of ours in the budgeting process and that hasn’t been reflected,” Santa Cruz said.
She and other council members urged Ortega and the rest of the task force to look at other fund sources, like rental car fees, to get the money needed to keep services free.
Before any changes to fares can be reinstated, Credio said, the city will have to conduct a Title VI equity analysis to look at the impact imposing fares will have on the community.
Ward 4 council member Nikki Lee motioned to start the equity analysis and requested more information on what public transit was like when it was supported by fares.
“I would like to request officially a sort of a refresher on what the system looked like before,” she said.
Santa Cruz and Dahl voted “no” on starting the Title VI analysis, saying they worried it would send the message that the city is reinstating fares.
“At the end of the day, we’re saying that, just the way that we invest in our roads for private use, that we’re investing in our public transportation for public use,” Santa Cruz said.
Lee withdrew the motion, choosing to table the decision for the next meeting and echoed Ortega and Romero’s concerns over the 2026 budget.
“I’m not trying to be the bad guy here. We all see we’re OK, maybe temporarily, but 2026 is going to be a huge problem,” Lee said
The mayor and other council members say they’re committed to making it work and Romero called back to how transportation was a key part of their Prosperity Initiative, an effort to combat poverty in the community.
“There’s a growing body of research showing that transportation security is a key factor in persistent poverty,” she said.
Studies have shown that cities that implement free fares boost regional GDPs. A study from the Center for Economic Information at the University of Missouri Kansas City showed free fares would increase regional GDP between $13 million and $17.9 million.
But Romero also said the budget is a concern.
“I don’t know if this is going to be able to sustain in the long run unless we find a much more stable source of revenue,” she said.
For three and half hours, Abdallah sat in the hard, white plastic chairs waiting for the group of elected officials to discuss the fate of free public transit. After the discussion ended, he agreed that the decision should wait until the mayor and council get more information.
For Abdallah and his family, free transit is part of their everyday lives and livelihoods.
“I just need fares to be free in general, not just for me but also my brother uses the bus a lot to meet with his friends and go to his office where he works and he also wants it to be free,” he said.
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