Timing Metro's 24-hour Day Pass

By Andy Shenk

Back in the day, when you bought a day pass on the bus it only worked until 2 am of the following day. It didn’t matter if you bought the pass at 6 am or 6 pm.

These days, Transit App lets me use my day pass for a full 24 hours no matter when I activate my ticket.

I love it. Every day when I head out the door I’m thinking through my options. For instance, a couple times a week I use the 20 bus to pick my four year olds up from preschool. The closest stop to my apartment is at 6th and Walnut and the bus arrives around 2:05 most days.

Today, though, I saw that I activated my ticket yesterday at 2:08. Instead of risking having to pay for a new fare, I walked down to Government Square, the stop prior to 6th and Walnut, and hopped on the bus at 2:04. I saved $2 and clocked 4 separate rides on that one pass.

Other days, I can milk up to 6 rides out of a pass. For instance, I might take the bus home from the park with the kids at 5 (ride #1), then catch a 17 later on to Burnet Woods to play disc golf (rides #2 and #3). The next morning, we’ll hop on the 6 to get to school (ride #4) and I’ll finish it off with a roundtrip on the 20 for preschool pickup at 2 (rides #5 and #6).

Not surprisingly, once I activate my day pass, my motivation to ride the bus increases pretty significantly. When I’m by myself, I can cover most of my trips on foot or by bike in 10-20 minutes. But the bus gives me a chance to catch up on texts or scroll social media for a few minutes, which as a stay-at-home dad is always welcome.

What’s your approach to bus fares? Do you have a monthly pass? Do you use cash or stored value cards? Buy one-ride and day passes on Transit?

How much it costs kids to ride Cincinnati Metro

By Andy Shenk

My kids are growing up, now ages 6, 4, and 4. We ride the bus most days, mostly for school, but also for everything else, from haircuts to doctors to Pokemon stores.

To ride Metro, kids 3-5 pay $1 and kids 6 and up pay the full $2 fare. It adds up for a family of five, so I poked around other American bus systems to see how Cincinnati compares to its peers.

It turns out Cincinnati’s fares are more expensive for families than nearly anywhere else. Here’s a quick rundown of some other cities:

Cincinnati is a clear outlier as the only city that officially charges 3 year olds to ride the bus. Now, in my experience, 3-4 year olds are not always charged and can often ride for free. But the policy is without question out of touch with the rest of American public transportation and needs to be reworked.

Beyond making it easier and cheaper for families to ride the bus together, my hope is that a simplified bus fare structure would increase ridership and make up for most, if not all, lost child fare revenue.

The Better Bus Coalition will be pushing this issue in the months to come and I hope we will have your support.

My dream for Cincinnati

By Andy Shenk

My dream for Cincinnati is to make riding public transportation as easy and intuitive as driving a car.

My dream is for public schools to teach kids about how public transportation means access to opportunity.

My dream is for children in Cincinnati to ride the bus for free.

My dream is for new residents to integrate quickly thanks to a bus system that connects them to everything they need.

My dream is for local elected officials to ride the bus because public transportation is vital to the city’s growth and success.

My dream is for Cincinnati to stake its identity on having the best public transportation system in America.

These are my dreams. What are yours?