Decades of free bus rides in downtown Seattle to end

As part of the biggest service change in their history, King County Metro Transit will do away with free bus rides in the downtown corridor effective Saturday.

The Ride Free Area began in 1973 in an effort to reduce congestion and support retailers by bringing business to their storefronts.

Many poor and low-income residents have counted on the service to get them from Point A to Point B.

Rodney McMillan, a 53-year-old street musician from Gary, Ind., has lived in Seattle for three years. He often boards a bus in the Ride Free Area and takes it as close as he can to Safeco Field, where he performs on game days.

“Most of my riding is in the free zone area, then I may have a short walk,” he said. “If it’s raining or the weather isn’t well, I’ll just go ahead and I’ll pay.”

McMillan said he may make $10 if he plays his flute or saxophone for an hour; more on a good night. But the unemployed former steel worker said the Ride Free Area has been a tremendous help.

“I use it all the time. I mean, it’s constant. I might have to go to the library. I may go up to the hospital,” said McMillan, who played his flute while waiting for a bus at 3rd and Pike.

When the Ride Free Area goes away, the trips McMillan once took for free will now cost as much as $2.50 during peak commute hours.

“It’s going to make me walk more because it’s not worth it to pay $2.25,” he said. “It’s ridiculous. They could have changed it to a $0.25 zone or $.0.50 zone, but it looks like they went straight for the jugular and said, ‘We’re going to charge the $2.25 straight up.”

Kevin Desmond, general manager for King County Transit, said they have no choice but to eliminate the zone.

“We’ve done many, many things to close our financing gap,” he said. “One of the issues was the Ride Free Area. We were not getting compensated for the fairly significant loss in revenue.”

Metro estimates they will raise roughly $2.2 million in fares each year by doing away with the zone.

Desmond expects there will also be fewer drunk and disorderly passengers taking advantage of free rides at night.

John Widner, 43, is a veterinary technician who boards the bus in the Ride Free Area to go to work in West Seattle. He often comes home late at night.

“I have seen people more than a little bit intoxicated coming on, maybe being a little bit rowdy on the bus,” he said. “Maybe just causing trouble, or other transactions happening in the back of the bus that aren’t necessarily supposed to be taking place in the back of the bus.”

Widner hopes those problems will decrease when all riders are forced to pay, but anticipates bus drivers will have more confrontations with passengers who don’t want to give them a fare.

Right now, Metro provides roughly one million bus tickets to low income riders through the King County Human Services Ticket Program. They are distributed through various agencies to clients in need of free or low cost transportation to medical appointments, job training and other essential services.

To help those affected by the end of the Ride Free Area, Metro and the City of Seattle will also run a circulator bus for low incomes riders who need to access health and human services downtown.