Metro honors Transit Equity Day with free rides on our system on Wednesday, Feb. 4

The birthday of civil rights icon Rosa Parks is Wednesday, Feb. 4 — a day also known as Transit Equity Day. We honor the occasion every year with free rides on our system to acknowledge and celebrate Rosa Parks’ refusal to surrender her seat on a bus to a white passenger in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1955.  

Parks’ courage led to the Montgomery Bus Boycott by Black riders, helped power the emerging Civil Rights movement across the country and led to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1956 ruling that bus segregation was unconstitutional.  

Transit Equity Day was created to remind everyone that good public transit is a fundamental right that connects people to jobs, education, health-care, culture, family and the world around them. That’s important in L.A. County, where about nine percent of households have no vehicles and about 30 percent of households have an income of less than $50,000.  

It’s Metro’s priority to ensure equitable access to transportation to everyone, every day. We’re happy today to make the rides free. If you want to ride our bus or rail system, just board a train or bus and enjoy the ride. To plan a transit trip, you can use Google Maps, Apple Maps, the Transit or Moovit apps or the trip planner on metro.net 

Use code 020406 for free rides on Metro Bike and code EQUITY26 for our on-demand service known as Metro Micro.  

Also: our new Transit Equity Day TAP card — see the design at right — is available beginning Friday, Jan. 30, at Metro Customer Centers and select Metro Rail and Busway stations. The card costs $2 plus fare. 

Very cool new equity tool

We now have a new page on metro.net where you can easily view demographic profiles of different cities, electoral districts and other geographic areas.

It’s a great tool if you’re working on projects designed to improve equity — data can help you pinpoint areas where residents are mobility- or economically-challenged. For example, here’s data on L.A. County:

Speaking of equity, here’s a brief overview of our work on our front:  

Ensuring public safety   

Everyone deserves a safe ride. Over the past four years, we’ve:   

•Increased law enforcement foot patrols and community outreach.  

•Worked to eliminate crime-prone areas through our Station Experience program.  

•Created a Department of Public Safety (DPS) — which now includes a Care-Based Division to deliver holistic, care-based services to people in need on our system. Here’s a recent interview we did with DPS Chief Bill Scott on his vision for the DPS and the importance of care-based strategies.   

•Launched our Metro Ambassadors program — providing a friendly presence for riders and de-escalation support.   

Keeping fares affordable 

Metro’s regular fare of $1.75 has remained unchanged since 2014 and is lower compared to other major transit agencies 

We also keep fares inexpensive with programs offering free rides for K-12 and community college students (GoPass), free and discounted rides for low-income residents (LIFE), and discounted fares for seniors, Medicare recipients, and disabled customers. Follow the links to learn more.   

Enhancing mobility for all  

There is work across the agency to expand our system and make it accessible.  

This includes our upcoming extension of the D Line to the Miracle Mile and Beverly Hills, work to make our system easier to use by those with disabilities (which includes about 20 percent of Metro riders), planning and building affordable housing near transit, getting more people involved in planning and electrifying more of our bus fleet to help reduce air pollution. 

That is a short list. We encourage you to visit Metro’s Equity Information Hub, to learn more about Metro’s Equity efforts and resources.