Children throughout the Twin Cities will be able to ride the bus for free starting Oct. 1 under a new program called “Move Ahead Washington” that was passed by the state Legislature at the end of this year’s legislative session.
Under the program, local transportation providers are required to adopt policies that will enable children to ride transit services for free, with the state government reimbursing local agencies for the cost.
Move Ahead Washington, a long-term transportation plan for Washington state, was passed by the state House by a vote of 57 to 41. Reps. Joel McEntire and Jim Walsh from the 19th District, Peter Abbarno and Ed Orcutt from the 20th District and Dan Griffey and Drew MacEwen of the 35th District all voted against the legislation.
The state Senate passed the proposal by a vote of 30 to 19, with Sens. Jeff Wilson of the 19th District and John Braun of the 20th District voting against it while Sen. Tim Sheldon of the 35th District voted for the program.
Joe Clark, director of Twin Transit, said the agency was already working to make Twin Transit’s services more accessible to children.
“We now go to every school in both the Centralia and Chehalis school districts,” Clark said. “So we're kind of ahead of the game in recognizing the need to provide alternative options.”
Clark said one of Twin Transit’s main goals is to provide students, especially middle or high school children, the opportunity to take part in activities in and around schools.
The program is designed to make it easy for children to access transit services.
“Geographically, we’re going to all schools. … In most cases we were close to the schools anyways so we just expanded those routes,” Clark said. “We’re at each of those schools once an hour, whereas those yellow buses are only there at specific times.”
According to Clark, Twin Transit has been coordinating with school districts to ensure its buses can serve as a complimentary service that doesn't overlap with school bus service.
“We start at 6 in the morning and go to 7 at night, so students that have zero hour classes or students that stay after for additional activities,” Clark said.
Clark believes the program won’t require significant effort to verify ages, since Twin Transit anticipates most students using the program will get on buses at schools.
“I don’t think we’ll have to police it. I think it’ll take care of itself,” Clark told The Chronicle.
Clark said when there are questions as to a person’s age due to appearance or location, they may request identification by showing something like a student ID.
One requirement Twin Transit will impose is a rule requiring children 10 years old or younger be accompanied by a parent or older sibling.
To raise awareness of the new program, Twin Transit has been working with schools.
“Our operations center has a direct line of communication to the front office of all those schools,” Clark said.
“(I’ve been going) into classroom settings, talking to students and teachers, going into classrooms and explaining the differences between the yellow bus and city bus,” said Maleah Kuzminsky, who has been working with students to help them take advantage of Twin Transit’s services. “If it’s requested I’ll meet with students or parents and ride with them a couple times so they can get comfortable.”
Beyond working with students and adding moving bus lines to stop at schools, Twin Transit has also made it possible for Running Start students to get to Centralia College. While Centralia students will be able to take a bus line to the college, it is now also possible for W.F. West students to go to the college by getting on the bus in Chehalis and transferring to a Centralia bus line, which will then take them to the college campus.
“I hope (the program) encourages students within the Twin Cities to ride more frequently,” said Clark, who added it will be difficult to fully know the impact of the program as Twin Transit did not previously keep track of the number of children riding buses. Under Move Ahead Washington, transit agencies will now be required to count the number of children using their services.
One potential challenge posed to transit agencies such as Twin Transit as they prepare to implement the Move Ahead Washington program is a shortfall of workers.
“The pool of qualified drivers is very small right now, and all transit and all schools are finding challenges finding enough staff,” Clark said. “We are constantly looking for well qualified people. We will train you.”
According to Clark, the limited number of bus drivers has made it difficult to fully serve the community, though Twin Transit hasn’t had difficulties operating the main bus lines yet.
“There’s two different systems we run. The fixed routes typically do a geographical loop of some kind, and those are the last type of route we would change,” Clark said.
Clark believes the fixed route bus lines, the lines that stop at schools, will be fine for now, which means the Move Ahead Washington program will be implemented come Oct. 1.
“It’s important to recognize these kinds of opportunities to students that provide access to activities (like sports and other extracurriculars) they may not have had access to otherwise,” Clark said.
Kuzminsky added that bus services can make a difference in the financial lives of families.
“I’ve been working with some students. … The difference (in savings from utilizing bus services) is their grocery budget,” she said.
While transit workers such as Clark and Kuzminsky are looking forward to what they believe are the benefits of the Move Ahead Washington program, the idea of free transit rides for children has drawn the ire of some rural legislators who view it as unfairly benefitting urban children at the expense of rural families.
State Sen. Mark Schoesler, the top Republican in the Senate for the capital budget, and the former Senate Republican leader, criticized the new program for unfairly discriminating against rural families. In Schoesler’s view, the program providing children free transit ridership was a program passed mainly because of support by “Puget Sound-area Democrats.”
“Unfortunately, this is another example of how the Democratic majority preaches about ‘equity’ without truly practicing it,” said Schoesler, R-Ritzville. “They had to know offering free transit and ferry rides would benefit primarily kids in populous areas, rather than kids in rural counties, even though rural families help pick up the tab.”
Schoesler also criticized the Move Ahead Washington transportation plan for spending money on maintenance projects in the Puget Sound region he believes rural residents won’t be able to take advantage of while failing to fund similar projects in rural areas.
“I know the Puget Sound counties have important highway maintenance needs, but so do other parts of our state. I’d like to see the Department of Transportation be as committed to completing highway projects in Eastern Washington as it is for the Puget Sound region. We pay taxes and fees, too,” said Schoesler, who soon turned his criticism to Gov. Jay Inslee. “Governor Inslee has been playing up the free transit rides to kids and the Puget Sound-area highway projects. Instead of focusing on programs and projects that mainly help out his supporters, the governor should focus more on the transportation needs of the entire state.”
