MA: Merrimack Valley takes fare-free travel mainstream

This coming week marks one year since the Merrimack Valley’s transit system (MeVa) made fare-free bus travel permanent, fueled by state Fair Share Amendment dollars.

MeVa is the first of the state’s 15 regional transit authorities to take the plunge.

In March 2022, MeVa introduced system-wide fare-free travel funded for two years by federal pandemic assistance grants.

In 2019, Merrimack Valley transit piloted free travel on routes in Lawrence frequented by senior citizens.

Now, fare-free bus travel is a cog in MeVa culture.

It’s a dynamic that shapes both attitudes of riders, expected to reach 3.5 million this fiscal year (tripling pre-fare-free numbers), and the work of some 110 bus drivers as they transport riders daily on MeVa’s 26 routes in 16 towns and cities from Lowell to Newburyport.

Complaints have been reduced by a third and the work force has grown by 40% with 200 employees, MeVa administrator Noah Berger said.

In December, ridership on MeVa buses was 245,885.

The number is 4.1% higher than the 236,282 riders in December 2024 and 81% above the pre-pandemic ridership of 136,175 riders in December 2019.

It’s not just the full-size buses on their fixed routes that have seen an increase in usage.

In this fiscal year, ending June 30, MeVa is on pace to provide more than 130,000 fare-free rides, by appointment, on MeVa SUVs and mini-buses, 60% above the pre-pandemic level.

This spring, buoyed by a state grant, MeVa will extend its bus routes to Salem, New Hampshire, including stops at Tuscan Village’s Mass General Brigham Healthcare Center.

The transit authority, led by Berger, has promoted its successes at transportation conferences, most recently two weeks ago in Washington, D.C., at the international Transportation Research Board conference.

It was attended by some 14,000 people and included panel discussions, one of which was on fare-free transportation.

Berger spoke about MeVa’s success surveying and listening to its riders and the businesses and communities it serves, and dispelled notions about people not valuing free service and prospective passengers being scared away by free fares.

Another panel presenter was Jorge Diaz-Gutierrez, a transportation analyst in Dallas, Texas, with a PhD from Penn State.

He said his research, which includes MeVa studies, shows eliminating fares can lead to large ridership gains when providers rely on policies driven by data.

His research indicates that knowing communities’ needs and reliable service — more routes and more frequent service — are vital for fare-free transit to succeed.

Berger also said in Washington that MeVa’s fare-free service makes economic sense with benefits topping $2 million a year accruing from reductions in emissions, pavement damage, congestion, operating costs, safety and fare collection costs such as machine maintenance, counting, equipment and security.

Berger and his team have made a case for funding the state’s regional transit authorities to the Massachusetts legislature, which, along with the governor, has responded with budgets that support the request.

The fiscal ‘25 budget, which ended June 30, provided the RTAs $30 million, with MeVa receiving $2.6 million to operate year-round fare-free service.

The fiscal ‘26 budget has increased its funding to RTAs, with MeVa receiving $3.3 million.

Fare-free funding in the coming fiscal year looks promising as well. It is not dependent upon federal dollars, according to budget researchers at the State House.

MeVa has an annual budget of $32 million funded by federal, state and local sources.

State dollars provide the majority of the funding, with free fares sustained by funding from the Fair Share, a 4% surtax on income over $1 million commonly called the Millionaires’ Tax in Massachusetts.

About 30%, or $9.4 million, of MeVa’s operating budget comes from federal grants.

Wednesday afternoon in frigid temperatures at McGovern Transportation Center in Lawrence, riders stood at platforms on the mural splashed ground floor of the high-level parking garage.

They awaited convoys of tropical colored buses that take them to work, school, medical appointments, shopping and home.

Riders and drivers shared reflections on the fare-free experience.

The drivers

Luis Hiraldo of Lawrence checked his bus tires’ pressure on the center’s north side after having completed a route.

He has driven buses 32 years for Merrimack Valley transit (he’s retiring this weekend), most of them when fares were charged and the money was dropped into the fare box next to the driver.

“More people ride the bus (now),” Hiraldo said. “They’re happy.”

With no fare box, passengers just walk on the bus, exchange hellos with the driver and take a seat.

There’s no lingering. If a rider is having a bad day they just take it to their seat with little opportunity to take it out on a fellow passenger or driver, he said.

Angel Lopez, this day driving the #7 route to Beacon Street, Andover Street and then the Andover Marriott and back to McGovern, said not having to collect fares and deal with transfer tickets makes it easier for drivers to run the buses on schedule.

And free buses help people struggling to get by.

‘It’s easier for them to get to their job,” he said. “Some people just don’t have the money to pay a taxi.”

Lopez and a majority of the drivers live in the communities the buses serve and feel a connection to their riders and the cities through which they drive.

A majority of drivers, including Lopez, are bi-lingual, speaking English and Spanish, in a region with many Spanish speaking riders.

Driver Fanny Taveras, at a neighboring platform, bound for Methuen, is also bilingual.

“People love it,” she said of fare-free travel. “Because a lot of people are struggling right now. And this helps a lot.”

She’s been driving buses for 19 years, 2 1/2 years at MeVa and the rest school buses.

A lot of high school students ride the MeVa buses, especially Lawrence High kids.

The bus gets them closer to home or where they need to go, students said.

Driver Irving Young said the students are well behaved.

Fare free keeps things simple for drivers.

“(Passengers) get on, they get off,” he said.

The Riders

Kathery Vargas was waiting for her bus. She rides buses every day to get to her job as a hostess at a Methuen restaurant and to Merrimack College where she is a pre-med/biology student.

She lives in Andover and said she has never had a problem on the bus. She typically keeps to herself unless someone needs help translating.

Fare-free service is valuable because not everyone has the $1.50 (the previous fare) for a ride.

“We all go through different situations,” Vargas said.

Seated on a bus at the nearby platform are friends Rachelle Torres and Perla Delgado of Lawrence.

Torres graduated last spring from Lawrence High School and is now a student at Northern Essex Community College where she is studying criminal justice with an eye to becoming a state attorney.

She rides MeVa three times a week.

“It helps me a lot because school is very important to me and I don’t have a car right now,” she said.

The MeVa routes go everywhere, she said.

“I literally could walk one minute and I’m at the bus,” she said. “So that’s pretty good.”

A number of MeVa employees were riders on the system before they went to work there.

Celeste Cruz, 27, a communications/marketing employee at MeVa, first rode the buses as a child with her aunt who taught her how to hail a ride and bus etiquette including giving up a seat to an elderly person.

Cruz said she became comfortable riding a bus, to school, and, later, to work at the Lawrence nonprofit Elevated Thought. So much so that she did not get a driver’s license until only last year at 26.

MeVa Advisory Board member Myra Ortiz, who represents Lawrence, has been and remains a regular MeVa passenger.

She was among the 15 board members who voted unanimously last Feb. 6 to make fare-free travel on MeVa permanent.

Ortiz said she has seen the MeVa transformation from fare to fare-free service.

She remembered when people did not have the right change or enough money for a ride and the tension it created between riders and drivers.

Now, there is not only far less tension but improved community connections, a bond between bus drivers and regular riders.

She said she sees public transit growing under the fare-free philosophy.

“I’m fully confident that with fair-share dollars and legislative support, we can continue to go fare free in the Merrimack Valley,” Ortiz said. “And I think that it is actually the move that the whole commonwealth should be embracing.”

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