This article has been updated since it first appeared in print.
Photo courtesy GRTC
Riding the bus in Richmond will be free for another year, thanks to eleventh-hour funds secured by the GRTC Transit System.
Since 2020, it’s been free to ride the bus in Richmond. The public transit provider stitched together money from state grants and local donors to start the program as a pandemic-era precaution to reduce contact between bus operators and riders. The program, known as Zero Fare, also alleviated commuting costs for Richmonders who needed to get to work, many of them frontline employees who depend on the bus as their primary form of transportation.
The program has used a combination of a state grant plus local matches from GRTC itself and Virginia Commonwealth University. Public transit ridership in many U.S. cities plunged during the COVID-19 pandemic, but GRTC saw close to 11 million riders across all public transit services in 2024, an almost 20-year high.
In recent months, however, funding for the program beyond June 2025 appeared to be in jeopardy. VCU, which has contributed more than a million dollars every year since 2023, said it would not contribute to the program in the upcoming fiscal year, which begins in July. Both local transit advocates and Richmond Democrats raised alarms in early 2024, urging local businesses and city and state governments to take action.
GRTC announced in mid-April that it had secured the $6.8 million it needs to extend the program through July 2026. The budget for Zero Fare, which the GRTC board approved on June 12, includes appropriation of a budget surplus from the previous fiscal year, a federal grant made possible under the federal Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021, money from advertising revenue and donations from local organizations, and a small donation from VCU in the amount of $100,000 (plus $75,000 contributed through a community partnership). Most notable is the drop in contribution from the university, which has previously pitched in $1.2 million to $1.3 million, and the absence of funding from the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation, which, in some past years, contributed the bulk of funds for Zero Fare.
GRTC's plan for the future is to supplement state grants with proceeds from a new campaign to sell advertisements on buses and at stops, as well as GRTC’s Transit Access Program, or TAP, which collects tax-deductible donations from local businesses and individual donors. “With those two approaches, we’re hoping to have this long-term vision for Zero Fare to be a part of the community,” Potter says. Some buses already carry ads, but the new push for an expanded ad program is meant to provide a more predictable, long-term source of funding for Zero Fare.
Despite the threat, Potter says GRTC isn’t concerned about funding Zero Fare in the future, nor should riders worry about being asked to pay without notice. The company can’t reinstate fares overnight, she says: Operators would need to be trained on collecting fares, and bus stops would need to be outfitted with fare boxes, a process that could take at least two years.
