by BLACK ENTERPRISE Editors
July 31, 2025
Practically 90% of Albuquerque’s bus riders have family incomes of lower than $35,000 per yr, and the same proportion don’t have entry to a car
Sabina Wohlmuth’s days used to incorporate lengthy, scorching walks throughout the town of Albuquerque, typically 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, should you’re homeless and also you’re poor, that’s some huge cash,” Wohlmuth mentioned.
Wohlmuth now takes the bus day by day 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 2023changing into one of many largest U.S. cities to implement zero-fare transit. A few yr 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.
“It is 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 method to actually simply open up entry and create mobility so that folks have the chance to have some upward motion.”
Mobility for survival
Practically 90% of Albuquerque’s bus riders have family incomes of lower than $35,000 per yr, and the same 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 individuals which can be most in want the assets, after which constructing out different points of public transit, ” says Ramirez, the co-founder and govt director of Collectively for Brothers. In 2017, the group group performed a group well being influence evaluation that led to a give attention to transit fairness advocacy. Beginning in 2019, the group group has led a coalition to push totally free 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 day by day. On a Wednesday in February, Battiste was driving the bus west on Central Avenue, the town’s essential thoroughfare, from a methadone remedy program to a lodge the place he’d not too long ago secured momentary housing on the opposite aspect of city.
Q, a 32-year-old who has been unhoused since they had been 18, additionally rode the bus down Central Avenue that day in the wrong way, to choose 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 limitations for our purchasers and people we serve in accessing well being care, jobs, housing, all the issues that we all know are the structural options to homelessness,” says Rachel Biggs, chief technique officer at Albuquerque Well being Take care of the Homeless.
“We all know individuals 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 assist simply proceed to develop, and we’ve got quite a lot of transit-dependent residents.”
Biggs says her group beforehand spent about $50,000 a yr 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 Take care of the Homeless’s workplace early within the morning to choose up a free each day bus move, then “turning round and getting again on the bus” to succeed in their locations for the day. Month-to-month passes had been much less possible due to the frequency that folks 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 should undergo all of the hoop-jumping, so to now hop on and hop off, it does enhance entry to all of the companies 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, an important mobility choice when cash is tight or different transportation falls by. One 67-year-old lady discovered herself on the bus after her automotive was repossessed as a result of difficulties making ends meet not too long ago. “It’s good to have one thing that’s free, once you’ve all the time pushed, you’ve all the time paid insurance coverage, and also you pay for nearly every thing,” 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 day by day. She estimates she beforehand spent not less than $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 a superb 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 individuals experiencing homelessness who can now extra simply use the bus to succeed in their locations or who’re utilizing it as shelter from the weather.
Recovering ridership
Erin Rode for Subsequent Metropolis
Ridership has steadily elevated since Albuquerque first piloted zero fares in 2022, with total 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 and stave off main service cuts amid a price range shortfall.
However for now, not less than, it looks like Albuquerque’s free fares are sticking round.
Fare income beforehand “wasn’t a lot of something,” in accordance with 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 Normal Fund to the tune of about $30 million every year.
The town’s not too long ago accredited price range for fiscal yr 2026 saved this subsidy, and the town “stands behind its Zero Fares system,” in accordance with 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 accordance with Keener, since returning to 100% of service ranges wouldn’t be financially possible. The proposed restoration community consists of streamlining and restructuring some routes to offset the prices of accelerating frequency and night and weekend service. The reconfiguring is anticipated to extend the variety of residents inside a half-mile of a route with frequent service.
Ramirez views increasing frequency as the subsequent step after making buses free.
In keeping with Ramirez, ABQ Experience has lengthy tried to do “rather a lot with a little bit,” with the restoration plan elevating questions of whether or not the company ought to give attention to 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 must be for everyone. It must be to attach individuals who want it most to get the place they should go,” he says. “It’s individuals getting to colleges, it’s individuals attending to work, it’s individuals getting outside, it’s individuals getting meals, it’s individuals 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
