Federal employees aren’t the only ones getting free rides. Metro’s own employees and officials get to ride free — even long after they leave the agency.
Metro allows all its 10,000-plus employees to ride its trains and buses free at any time, whether working or not. Uniformed and non-uniformed law enforcement officers from select agencies get to ride for free, too.
But Metro also extends the ride-for-free benefit to thousands of its retirees, former executives, former board members and spouses of some former bus drivers.
The perk goes to retirees whether the employees were unionized or not. The bus employees’ spouses get the free rides as a holdover from when Metro bought the ABW Transit Co. in 1973 as it took over local bus companies.
The transit agency does not track how much the free ride-for-life cards cost the system in lost revenue. The Examiner estimated last year that the nearly 2,800 retirees and former officials with the cards alone could cost the system as much as $6.5 million each year — before any fare increases are enacted.
