When the General Assembly created the Transit Rider Incentive Program (TRIP) as part of Gov. Ralph Northam’s 2020 transportation omnibus, the lion’s share of the funding was allocated to support new regional bus routes. With COVID’s cancellation of much commuter service across the commonwealth, those dollars are now being dedicated to TRIP’s secondary goal: fare free transit pilot projects.

With large localities like Lynchburg, Roanoke, Alexandria, Richmond, Charlottesville, and Fairfax County now expressing interest in eliminating bus fares for at least three years, could the shift to zero fares in Virginia become permanent?

Nearly every transit system in the commonwealth dropped fares last year as a public health measure in response to COVID, but until recently none had announced intentions to make that move to protect riders and operators more permanent. Based on the responses to a request for ideas DRPT issued to transit providers last fall, the list of bus systems seeking to stay fare free beyond the pandemic could soon grow substantially longer.

Subramanyam’s bill and its Senate twin, Sen. John J. Bell (D-13)’s Senate Bill 1259, have many elements of bills introduced and killed every year since Subramanyam’s predecessor David I. Ramadan held office. This year, it enjoys the broadest support among Loudoun’s state delegation of any bill of its type in that time, and is now headed to the Senate floor, possibly for a final vote. The Senate bill has already passed both chambers. One of its co-patrons, Sen. Jennifer B. Boysko (D-33), serves on the Senate transportation committee.

However, the bill still faces some opposition from the Greenway’s powerful lobbying firm, Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP, and lawmakers sympathetic to the Australia-based multinational firm that owns the Greenway, Atlas Arteria.

The bill seeks to create measurable standards for evaluating whether proposed toll increases would discourage use of the highway—something many Loudouners say is already happening, as they avoid Greenway tolls when they can. Under the law governing the Greenway, toll increases should not discourage use.