Prince George’s County students no longer can take free Metrobus trips at the end of school each day, the latest program squeezed out during a tight budget year.
The program had allowed students from the county to ride Metrobuses for free from 2 p.m. to 7 p.m. each school day. But when school started Monday, they had to pay the regular fare of up to $3 for express buses. The change could affect at least 60,000 middle- and high-schoolers in the county’s public schools.
“Obviously, the program was a great benefit to our students who routinely catch the bus after school to go to other activities, visit the library,” said Tanzi West Barbour, a school district spokeswoman.
Students still can take the county’s local bus system, The Bus, for free.
Montgomery County students still receive free Metrobus rides as they have since 2003, while D.C. students receive subsidized and unlimited Metro passes, according to Metro. Each of those local governments has agreed to pay Metro for the extra service.
But the cost of the rides was too much for Prince George’s County. When the program was approved by Metro’s board of directors in July 2007, the county had agreed to pay the transit agency for any lost fares, which at the time they estimated would be $300,000 per year.
The end of the program was a blow to students but also to the county after it avoided a close call earlier this year in losing substantial amounts of Metrobus service.
In the spring, large crowds turned out to public hearings when the transit agency threatened to cut some $13.6 million in bus service around the system, with riders saying that Prince George’s County was going to be hit worse than any other jurisdiction. The transit agency was able to avoid most of those cuts by tapping into a reserve fund.
But the county decided to cut the free ride program. Public school students were notified in the spring of the change, West Barbour said.
