Until recently, Tristan Isaac considered a bus ride an extravagance.
Since moving to Portland four years ago without a car, Isaac has found the cost of regular adult TriMet fare—$2.50 for a two-and-a-half-hour pass, $5 for a day pass, or $100 for a monthly pass—too expensive to be a daily option.
“If I had to go somewhere on budget, I’d use my bike, but if I were going somewhere special, I’d take the bus,” Isaac says. “Because $5 a day really adds up.”
Last November, Isaac’s bike was stolen. Having lost his job, he couldn’t afford a new one, but he knew TriMet had recently introduced a low-income fare program, wherein people who earn around $24,000 or less a year can qualify for a monthly TriMet pass for $28.
Isaac enrolled, and it instantly changed the way he gets around the city.
“I don’t worry about taking the bus anymore—it’s the last thing I think about,” he says. “It’s relieved a lot of stress.”
Isaac is an organizer with OPAL Environmental Justice Oregon, an activist organization that focuses on the intersections of transportation and environmental policy. OPAL played a key role in pushing TriMet to adopt the low-income fare program, but its members are now eyeing an even more ambitious goal: a completely fareless TriMet.
