Free Fare Day in the South Bay on Tuesday

The Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority is offering free rides on its buses and trains all day Tuesday.

“Free Fare Day,” as the VTA is calling the event, starts at the beginning of service in the early morning hours of Tuesday, Sept. 23, and will run through 3 a.m. Wednesday, Sept. 24, the agency said.

Stacey Hendler Ross, a VTA spokesperson, said Free Fare Day is a way for the agency to thank existing riders, and a way to attract potential new riders with the hope of reviving sluggish train ridership figures and boosting revenue during its current multi-year budget deficit.

“They may say, ‘OK, well I’ll take the train this day, or I’ll take the bus this particular day because I don’t have to pay,’ and that may turn them into a new regular customer,” Hendler Ross said.

The daylong free rides also coincide with All Aboard Transit Day, part of the larger Transit Month celebrations in September by more than 20 of the region’s public transit agencies.

During All Aboard Transit Day, various agencies are hosting events, participating in panel discussions and giving away transit-branded swag, among other efforts, to drum up interest and boost transit use.

“Transit Month is something to just raise the consciousness of transit in people’s minds, to let them know that it’s here, to remind them that it is environmentally a great way to get around the Bay Area,” Hendler Ross said.

VTA buses and light rail trains move tens of thousands of people around the South Bay each day, but the agency has faced major challenges, including the tightening financial picture and a 17-day strike by its bus drivers and train operators in March that only came to an end by order of a judge.

The agency has seen steady growth in its bus ridership after the pandemic, and currently sits at about 90% of pre-pandemic levels, with some days exceeding those prior totals, Hendler Ross said.

Light rail trains, however, have faced a harder road to recovery, remaining about 60% as full as they were before the pandemic, which she attributed to the rise in remote work and partial shutdowns for improvements in recent years.

The agency’s board approved a two-year budget earlier this summer that includes using reserves to cover a roughly $868,000 hole in fiscal year 2026, and millions more in reserves, along with cost-saving measures, to patch a nearly $15 million gap in 2027.

The agency is also heading up the effort to build a 6-mile, four-station extension of the BART system through downtown San José and into Santa Clara. That project, expected to be finished in 2037, would complete a long-held vision to encircle the Bay with transit options.

The extension project is currently expected to cost roughly $12.7 billion.

Riders can plan trips on VTA buses and light rail trains through the agency’s Trip Planner or on the agency’s app.