E424: Transit Trouble

We are back on open record.

In the summer of 2025, MCTS announced it had an expected budget deficit of more than $10 million.

And a Fox 6 investigation found the system was giving away 8 million free rides per year.

One year later, Brian decided to see how things are going on.

Brian, obviously this is an issue that affects so many people.

A lot of people are invested in what's going to happen.

Whether you ride the bus or

don't, it has an impact for sure.

Absolutely.

What did you find when you revisited this story?

Well, first of all, when we did the story a year ago, this was already a topic that MCTS and county leaders were discussing because of this surprise budget deficit.

And the question of fair evasion was something that was referenced right away as one of those issues.

And when we did our story, after we did our story during budget hearings, MCTS was saying we're going to make it a priority to fix this, to reduce it.

initially they said we're going to reduce it from 33 to 30 and some county supervisors said whoa that's that's hardly anything well over the course of the next year uh mcts came back and it made a natural uh it was a natural follow-up to say how are they doing now and mcts's own internal data shows that through the first six months of 2026 fair evasion has been decreased to 24 what does that mean Well, at 33%, it means one out of every three people getting on a county bus is not paying the fare required to ride.

At 24%, it's more like one out of every four.

So it's better, but it's certainly not where some would like to see it because that still means you've got a lot of people who are riding for free.

One of the questions is, How many of those people who are riding for free would ride at all if they had to pay, if there was enforcement? So are you really missing out on all of that money? That's one of the questions.

And we're going to talk a little bit later to one of the county supervisors involved in all of these talks.

He'll be here on the podcast in a couple of segments about that question.

But there are still people who look at it and say, you're supposed to pay to ride.

Some people who say, I'm paying.

I don't make much money, but I'm doing my part.

Why aren't you doing theirs? So there's certainly a question.

Is 24% right? A good enough improvement.

But we also wanted to know, it's hard to tell how is MCTS coming up with those numbers.

We are back on open record.

In the summer of 2025, MCTS announced it had an expected budget deficit of more than $10 million.

And a Fox 6 investigation found the system was giving away 8 million free rides per year.

One year later, Brian decided to see how things are going on.

Brian, obviously this is an issue that affects so many people.

A lot of people are invested in what's going to happen.

Whether you ride the bus or

don't, it has an impact for sure.

Absolutely.

What did you find when you revisited this story?

Well, first of all, when we did the story a year ago, this was already a topic that MCTS and county leaders were discussing because of this surprise budget deficit.

And the question of fair evasion was something that was referenced right away as one of those issues.

And when we did our story, after we did our story during budget hearings, MCTS was saying we're going to make it a priority to fix this, to reduce it.

initially they said we're going to reduce it from 33 to 30 and some county supervisors said whoa that's that's hardly anything well over the course of the next year uh mcts came back and it made a natural uh it was a natural follow-up to say how are they doing now and mcts's own internal data shows that through the first six months of 2026 fair evasion has been decreased to 24 what does that mean Well, at 33%, it means one out of every three people getting on a county bus is not paying the fare required to ride.

At 24%, it's more like one out of every four.

So it's better, but it's certainly not where some would like to see it because that still means you've got a lot of people who are riding for free.

One of the questions is, How many of those people who are riding for free would ride at all if they had to pay, if there was enforcement? So are you really missing out on all of that money? That's one of the questions.

And we're going to talk a little bit later to one of the county supervisors involved in all of these talks.

He'll be here on the podcast in a couple of segments about that question.

But there are still people who look at it and say, you're supposed to pay to ride.

Some people who say, I'm paying.

I don't make much money, but I'm doing my part.

Why aren't you doing theirs? So there's certainly a question.

Is 24% right? A good enough improvement.

But we also wanted to know, it's hard to tell how is MCTS coming up with those numbers.