Mayor’s proposed budget set to kill Richmond’s zero-fare transit program by summer

When the Greater Richmond Transit Company (GRTC) received an $8 million grant from the state’s Department of Rail and Public Transportation (DRPT) just five months ago, it seemed the fate of the city’s experiment with zero-fare transit was secured through 2025. What the headlines missed is that the DRPT grant requires matching funds in order to maintain it: roughly $1 million in the first year of the pilot, $3 million in the second, and $5 million in the final year before the region is on its own to keep Richmond’s fare-free transit going.

Although Mayor Levar Stoney’s Office of Equitable Transit submitted a request for the funds in January, the budget currently before council includes no such funding, meaning Richmond’s nationally-lauded zero-fare pilot program could be dead by summer.

Promises made, promises broken

Although Mayor Stoney has repeatedly pledged “to keep transit fare-free throughout [his] term as mayor,” his proposed budget shows no willingness for the city itself to fund it — despite promises he made in a letter of support submitted to DRPT alongside GRTC’s grant application.

The mayor’s budget proposal does contain a roughly $600,000 increase in funding to Central Virginia’s top transit provider; however, half of that money is earmarked for building out bus shelters and the other half accounts for inflation as required by the legislation that created the Central Virginia Transportation Authority (and also allowed the City of Richmond to slash its funding to GRTC by $8 million in 2020).

As long as I am Mayor of @CityRichmondVA, I pledge to maintain fare-free @GRTCTransit in the city! 🚌 #OneRichmond

— Mayor Levar M. Stoney (@LevarStoney) March 4, 2022

City officials insist GRTC should fill the $1 million gap itself using federal funds leftover from the initial pandemic response, but such a move would be considered an increase to the transit provider’s budget and thus require the approval of GRTC’s full board. Starting tomorrow, that body will include three new representatives from Henrico County in addition to three each from the City of Richmond and Chesterfield County. Long hostile to public transportation, Richmond’s surrounding counties have recently sung a softer tune towards transit, even going so far as to endorse a conservative argument for zero fares as “an effective, backdoor increase in the minimum wage [that] increases the incentive to work because the return is greater.”

Without the counties’ consent, the mayor’s preferred plan to come up with the $1 million in matching funds is a non-starter. Even worse, leftover federal funding will be long gone by the time the region has to scrounge together $3 million and $5 million to maintain the DRPT grant’s required matches in 2023 and 2024, respectively.

“We can’t spend money on fare-free service unless the board agrees to it,” explained GRTC board chair Reverend Ben Campbell. “Even if Henrico and Chesterfield were willing to slide a million dollars over this year, there won’t be any CARES Act funding next year, and that’s what board members are going to be looking at: is zero-fare sustainable?”

Equity through economic development

The lack of dollars dedicated to preserving Richmond’s zero-fare pilot program in the mayor’s budget proposal also caught the city council off guard. “I am surprised that fare-free funding wasn’t included in the budget proposal,” admitted 1st District Councilmember Andreas Addison. “Other council members have been very receptive to the need of having zero-fare funding in the budget. It’s a commitment that we as a city made publicly on several occasions so we have to make sure we do our due diligence to fund this priority.”

To try and ensure Richmond’s zero-fare program survives this year, Addison introduced a budget amendment for $1 million specifically to serve as matching funds for the DRPT grant. Although the city council has shown itself more willing to invest in progressive priorities in recent years, there is no guarantee that Addison’s amendment will receive votes from four other council members to adopt it. “Everyone supports the need for fare-free,” said Addison. “The challenge is going to be where we find the funding for that.”

In 2017, the city budget was roughly $740 million. This year alone, the mayor has proposed an additional $63.2 million in spending, bringing the municipal budget closer to $840 million. If Richmond can increase its expenditures by nearly $100 million in just five years, Addison is confident that the city’s burgeoning tax base can absorb the $5.5 million annual allocation needed to keep public transportation permanently free long after the DRPT grant has run out.

With a new growth-focused master plan, a study for a second North-South Pulse route, and new neighborhoods rising out of the city’s industrial ashes, true transit-oriented development (TOD) feels less like a slogan and more like a solid development strategy for the first time in a long time.

“I believe we can support zero-fare funding just by growing as a city,” Addison said. “The future of our world is going to be more transit-focused and less car-focused, so this is a chance for the City of Richmond to lead the transit conversation, especially as it pertains to TOD.”

Even if Addison’s amendment to save fare-free transit fails, riders won’t have to pay to board the bus until January 2023. From the beginning of the grant period, GRTC always promised riders at the least six months’ warning should fares return. The transit provider would need such time anyways to test and update fareboxes, verify fare collection software, print and distribute paper passes, and conduct staff training for the dozens of drivers that have never dealt with fares before.

Whatever happens to Richmond’s nationally renowned zero-fare transit program, Reverend Campbell is heartened to see city residents care about the fate of the bus and its hundreds of thousands of riders in a way that would have been unimaginable a decade ago: “The good news is that people are aware of the importance of public transit in this town in a way they weren’t ten years ago,’ he said. “That means we can have this conversation.”