Santa Rosa, Petaluma and Sonoma County offer free rides to promote transit equity

Three Sonoma County transit agencies offered free rides Sunday in honor of Transit Equity Day, which commemorates the birthday of civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks.

Her refusal, in 1955, to give up her seat in the “colored section” of a Montgomery, Alabama, bus to a white passenger — in defiance of segregation laws in place at the time — has been considered a pivotal moment in the Civil Rights Movement.

She was arrested and her actions sparked a more than yearlong bus boycott by Black people in protest of segregation and the Montgomery public transit system.

In honor of Parks’ birthday, Santa Rosa City Bus, Petaluma Transit and Sonoma County Transit offered systemwide transportation free in an effort to promote ridership and spread awareness of social justice and its link to public transit access.

Santa Rosa City Bus rides were fully free for its passengers while Petaluma Transit offered free rides along its “fixed-routes.”

This is the second year the Santa Rosa City Bus system has participated in the fare-free promotion, according to Matthew Wilcox, a transit planner with the transportation agency.

Wilcox said the three agencies coordinated with the local NAACP Santa Rosa-Sonoma County chapter to provide free transit.

The hope was to spread the message that “the bus is here for everyone to ride,” Wilcox said.

He said he hoped the promotion will “remind people that transit is one of those public services that shouldn't be overlooked because of the freedom that it gives individuals to prosper economically and socially.”

According to the Urban Institute, a national public policy think tank based in Washington, D.C., “Access to transportation reduces barriers to employment, to educational opportunities, to health care, and to child care. Access to these opportunities and resources affect all the dimensions of mobility from poverty.”

Going forward, Santa Rosa City Bus is working to reduce fare costs for riders. “SRJC students (ride) free, veterans (ride) free, youth (ride) free currently,” said Wilcox.

The city bus system is creating what’s being called an “Eco Pass Program” in which the transit system will partner with businesses or housing developments to “provide their residents or employees with a free bus pass,” he said.

However, “we're not at a point where we can say yes ... we're gonna go fully fare free,” Wilcox added, “it's something that we need to investigate further.”

Petaluma Transit System also is about to launch a fully fare-free pilot program for a year. Maria Arce, with Petaluma Transit, told The Press Democrat that the pilot program will begin in June or July.

The agency has the funding to and the intention to become a fare-free transit system in perpetuity through Measure M and general fund allocation, she said.

Arce said the program will start as a pilot. “It's just a responsible thing to do. So that we understand what the impacts are. And we can make adjustments.”

The city of Petaluma will be the first municipality in Sonoma County and in the nine-county Bay Area to go fare free with their fixed routes, paratransit and soon to launch app-based micro-transit services.

Currently, “there are no completely fare-free transit agencies in the Bay Area, based on the standard definition of ‘transit agency,’” according to John Goodwin, spokesperson with the Metropolitan Transportation Commission.

Both transit services hope to increase frequency for their transit systems. Buses currently run every 30 minutes to an hour, depending on the system and route.

Both Arce and Wilcox are hopeful that one day they can have buses run every 15 minutes along popular routes or systemwide.

“Due to the pandemic and us trying to recruit and retain drivers, we haven't been able to get back up to that service — level of service — on all our routes just yet,” Wilcox said.

He added, “15 is the goal.”

Kathryn Styer Martínez is a reporting intern for the Press Democrat. She can be reached at kathryn.styermartinez@pressdemocrat.com or 707-521-5337.