(Image: City of Seattle)
The future of transit in Seattle is free. A new program is now providing no-cost ORCA cards to every resident in the 99 buildings managed by the Seattle Housing Authority.
The new program is hoped to help residents living SHA-owned and managed housing save money on transportation while encouraging increased transit use.
“This pairing between a low-income housing program and an accessible public transit initiative is the first of its kind at this comprehensive scale in the United States,” according to the announcement from Mayor Bruce Harrell’s office.
The program will provide unlimited-use ORCA cards at no cost to all residents living in SHA-owned and managed housing through December 2026.
There are currently around 7,300 households with more than 10,000 residents living in SHA housing.
The effort follows a statewide sweep of transit subsidy that started in September making streetcars, light rail trains, and buses free to riders 18 and under.
As for making all transit no-cost, more work will need to be done. For now, systems like Metro and Sound Transit remain reliant on so-called “fare box recovery” with revenues from riders still crucial to operations under current budgets.
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I think this is a very nice program. I remember when traveling through the downtown core via transit was free. I am sure this will help many people.
I agree it was very nice back in the 70s and 80s. Might want to ask the bus drivers and transit riders about how it became not so nice, and why the free ride zone was ended.
Was it because funding for public programs and social safety nets rapidly declined throughout the 80s and haven’t recovered since in the name of neo-liberalism and privatization?
I dont understand your response…there were poor people and families in the 70s and 80s, and we didn’t have the public instability that we see today. What we didn’t have was Fentanyl (and Meth) pouring across our borders.
Nice for SHA low income people – but why not ALL low income folks? I’ll pat the (clueless short-sighted) generosity of the elite on their backs when they give all low income people these free Orca cards.
They’re keeping it simple. If they expand it to low income, that’s a lot of paperwork and phone calls to verify applicants’ status. In the limited program, they only need to verify an address.