Parents, teachers rally to save popular RT program from Sacramento budget cuts. Is city listening?

They showed up at City Hall from across Sacramento. Ilene Toney, down from south Natomas. April Ybarra, whose daughters attend Hiram Johnson High School; and parent-teacher Vanessa Cudabac, who made the trip from New Technology High School, both from south Sacramento.

Inside, Sacramento City Council leaders were about to discuss the fate of RydeFreeRT — the pioneering mass transit program that ferries thousands of Sacramento kids to schools, work, venues and activities across the city each year for free — and whether it would survive potential budget cuts to help right the city’s $66 million deficit. The annual investment is funded by a city Measure U tax increase approved in 2018.

The city’s $1 million contribution to the program, credited with substantially boosting youth ridership and school attendance among the city’s Black and brown students, would end as part of a slate of proposed budget cuts.

Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg, a RydeFree supporter, has proposed a cost-sharing plan with RT and local school districts that would reduce the city’s investment is being considered by transit and district leaders.

Steinberg’s cost-sharing solution would reduce the city’s contribution from $1 million to $250,000, with the remainder divided between Regional Transit, the Sacramento City Unified School District, and a combination of Natomas, Elk Grove and Twin Rivers school districts.

Regional Transit general manager Henry Li supports a contribution and will bring the proposal to transit board members, Steinberg said. School district officials are also said to be considering the mayor’s funding alternative.

School districts have incentive to sign off on Steinberg’s offer. Schools are largely funded based on average daily attendance of students. If students miss class, the school loses state funding for that student for that day.

But in the weeks since city leaders began considering eliminating RydeFreeRT parents, teachers and advocates like the ones who rallied Tuesday outside Sacramento City Hall have sounded the alarm to save a program they say is a lifeline for thousands of students.

“This is ripping a rug from under our most disadvantaged students,” New Technology parent-teacher Cudabec said. “Our schools are struggling, and this RydeFree program is a light. One of the areas of equity where we can make a difference is in education. We’re suffering an attendance crisis in our schools. If a kid can get up a 6 a.m. ready for school, the least we can do is wave the fare.”

A vote on Sacramento’s cost-cutting spending plan is still weeks away, when the city council will vote on the budget June 11. But parents like Ybarra were already considering the potential impact on students — among the system’s most frequent riders under the free program.

“We already lack transportation as a school district. Families are already struggling. We’re in survival mode,” Ybarra said, considering the hundreds of additional dollars it would take each month to get children to school and back on RT if free fares go away. “(The city) is not really considering the great impact in the community, especially low-income neighborhoods.”

“If my councilmember were to stand outside Hiram Johnson or stand on the corner of 65th Street and 14th Avenue, the vast majority (waiting for buses) are Black and Hispanic,” she said.

Steinberg said he wants RydeFree to remain fully funded, calling it a “vital and life-changing investment in our city’s youth,” but added, “not everyone believes that it is core to the city’s budget, especially when we face a large deficit.”

How do kids use the RydeFree program?

The daily scramble at the Toney household is complicated. Two teenagers, 14 and 15, one off to school, the other, homeschooled, off to work after his studies.

On a good day, mother Ilene is the taxi. Most days though, from their Gardenland neighborhood stop in south Natomas, Sacramento Regional Transit takes the wheel. For Sacramento kids like Toney’s teens, the bus ride’s free.

“My son constantly needs the bus. He’s going to work, trying to find a bus,” Ilene Toney said. “Even going downtown, you don’t have to depend on mom. It’s definitely been a benefit. A lot of parents where I’m from depend on it.”

RydeFreeRT was the first program of its kind in the nation to make free transit available to youth from transitional kindergartners to high school seniors, home-schooled students, foster and homeless youth when it debuted in 2019.

The program is available for youth who live or go to school within SacRT’s service area, which also includes Elk Grove, Folsom, Citrus Heights, Rancho Cordova and parts of Sacramento County. Schools distribute RydeFreeRT cards to students each school year.

Student ridership accounts for more than a quarter of all Sacramento Regional Transit rides on bus and light rail, up from 8% before RydeFree was launched in 2019.

The percentage is even higher at some Sacramento City Unified School District campuses, especially campuses downtown and near light rail, say officials. District officials say at those campuses, more than one in three students rely on Regional Transit.

“RydeFreeRT is incredibly important to us and fills a transportation gap for thousands of students and their families in our district,” Brian Heap, a district spokesman, said in a statement. “We have some middle and high schools where as many as one-third of students rely on SacRT buses and light rail trains to safely get them to and from school each day.”

Among them are the students of south Sacramento’s New Technology high school, said principal Jessica Martin.

Many come to her campus from the bigger schools. Many are from working class and lower income families. Many rely on buses or light rail to get to the Dickson Street campus, Martin said.

“So if we’re going to take this funding away from them, then they’re paying upwards of $1,000 a month just to get to and from school. That doesn’t count the jobs that they have to maintain to help their families, or caring for siblings or grocery shopping. Or even enjoy their lives as teenagers and explore the city,” she said.

“Taking this program will deeply injure the students of Sacramento because they rely on this transportation,” Martin said. “To rip this away from them would be a huge mistake.”

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