Long Beach Transit will be offering free rides on March 3 for election day to help increase mobility to polling locations.
The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority will also be offering free rides on Tuesday. Both Metro and Long Beach Transit have bus lines that directly serve the Long Beach State campus.
All of Metro’s 2,308 buses and six rail lines will be fare-free from midnight on Tuesday, March 3 to midnight on Wednesday, March 4.
In addition, Metro announced via press release that it would offer free 30-minute bike rides on Metro Bike Share, as well as free journeys for access riders and their companions.
The initiative was approved in 2018 by the Metro Board of Directors, which allowed free rides for state and federal elections.
“The Metro Board of Directors thought that it was important for election days to offer free rides as a way to reduce one obstacle in the voting process, and that is the need for transportation to get to your polling place to cast your vote,” Rick Jager, metro media relations said via email.
Jager said that voter mobility isn’t the only inspiration behind providing free rides.
“We believe it … helps [attract] new riders to the system who will give public transit a try for that particular day and may like it and begin using the Metro system more often,” Jager said.
Other agencies offering free rides on election day are Culver CityBus, Antelope Valley Transit Authority, and LADOT’s services on DASH, Commuter Express, Cityride and LANow. Pasadena Transit will be fare-free on both Monday, March 2 and Tuesday, March 3.
The Walter Pyramid vote center will be available for voting from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m on March 3.