The Next Stop: METRO's Podcast
Episode 59: Investing in the Future - Free Rides for Students This Summer


DW:  You have to invest in young riders, and they will give back when they get those wonderful jobs in our workforce areas. And they don’t choose their vehicles. They choose METRO.  

DD:  I’m Doug Delony. On this edition of the Next Stop:  METRO’s Summer of Fun returns with big savings for students!  

[Introduction music plays]

DD:  Today, on the Next Step, we welcome Danicel Whitaker. Hello, Danicel. Welcome back! 

DW:  Hello, Doug. Glad to be back. Thank you for having me.  

DD:  And you are METRO’s Vice President of Ridership Services. What is “ridership services?” 

DW:  Sure, Doug. Well, ridership services wholistically refers to the number of people using a form of transportation, such as our local Park & Ride, bus service, our train service, Curb2Curb, METROLift, Vanpool services. But in my department, we have two divisions with very talented groups who manage client ridership services, and that’s METRO STAR Vanpool and Client Services. So, our Vanpool Division is unique in that it offers services in the eight-county region, and their value proposition is the ability to offer services that provide a safe and economical way for groups of five or more commuters to share a van and travel together to and from work. Now, Client Services specializes in providing services to corporate clients in both the public and private sectors, as well as to educational institutions and workforces in the Texas Medical Center, Downtown, Midtown, Galleria, and all the surrounding areas.  

DD:  Yes, and we had an entire episode of this podcast on the Vanpool service, so I encourage anyone who wants more details and insight on the Vanpool to check out our older episodes, but today, we are talking about Summer of Fan. And the really big headline with this is students ride free this summer. That’s June 1st through August 31st, K through 12, and college students. We’ll get into those details again in a bit. But Danicel, I know this is not our first year to do this.  

DW:  You’re absolutely correct.  

DD:  So, why does METRO offer the Summer of Fun? Why free rides for students? 

DW:  Wow. Well, the Summer of Fun is an amazing program. It was implemented to educate young riders from kindergarten to college on the benefits and value of public transportation. It basically helps promote awareness of our multimodal services. This program builds transit awareness, ethics. It focuses on the ability of students to explore Houston all summer long, free of charge. 

DD:  I think that’s a really critical thing to get people onto public transit when they’re young. They learn how to ride. They are not intimidated by it. The bus service, you know, people are like, “Well, how do I scan my card? And how do I pay the fare? And do I have to have exact change?” And there’s a lot of—but once you do it a few times and you know it, it’s a great experience to use public transportation. So, you’re right. Starting people young is a critical component because they never have to fear it. I’m not ashamed to admit I grew up in the suburbs, and I didn’t use public transit up until I was probably about in college. And until then, yeah, I was intimidated by…

DW: [laughs]

DD:  [laughs] …the thought of using it. So, I think this whole idea of Summer of Fun or Students Ride Free This Summer is the big headline…

DW:  Mm-hmm.  

DD:  …is awesome. And I understand—we’re offering this on which METRO services? I know it’s local bus and METRORail, but it’s more than that, right?  

DW:  One of the things that’s amazing about the Summer of Fun is that it not only promotes free ridership for students but it allows them to explore the city. To go places where they’re not able to go because they do not have a vehicle, or there may just be one vehicle in the family. Now, they can go to one of our local Park and Rides, whether it’s Kingwood or Grand Parkway. Take that Park and Ride into the city, jump on our rail, and go to the zoo, go to the museum. Really explore the city free of charge. It’s an amazing program. And, you know, the Summer of Fun, we actually launched it in 2018, and we did a comprehensive outreach for that. It included multiple strategic partnerships, and I recall in that year that, there was an estimated fifty-one (51%) percent increase in student ridership. And each year, we see new gains in students who have adopted our local services, our Park and Rides, as part of their way of traveling in and around the city. It is really METRO’s way of investing in the future of its riders by providing these tangible benefits that positively impact young lives and create life-long travelers.  

DD:  That’s excellent because I tell you what is not the Summer of Fun, what’s not fun...

DW:  [laughs]

DD:  [laughs] …is circling around the museum district and the zoo trying to find a parking spot. As everyone knows, that zoo parking lot, it’s not that big. And there are some parking garages in that area, but you’re going to walk quite a long ways. In fact, in many cases, you’re going to walk farther than you if you just took the rail in. And so, it’s an excellent opportunity. So the dates for this year’s Summer of June:  June 1st to August 31st…  

DW:  Correct.  

DD:  …2023. I know some of the details, though. It involves their IDs. I mean, kids can’t get on and say, “Hey, I’m a kid. I’m a student.” They can’t just show their school student ID.  

DW:  Right.  

DD:  They have to have an active discounted METRO Q Fare Card. If they don’t have one already, how hard is it to get one of those? 

DW:  There are several ways to get a discounted student Q card. They can apply in person or online. They would need to provide a class schedule or a report card. They may also need to provide an application signed by a parent or legal guardian. In addition, we have a distribution program, much like our Ride Sponsor program, and this distribution program was developed to make it easier for educational institutions to provide Q Cards to their students. By utilizing the programs, students are able to obtain their Q cards conveniently without having to take time out of their busy school schedules to visit one of our RideStores. The program simplifies the process of getting a Q Card for students on campus, allowing them to get the cards quickly and easily.  

DD:  That’s great—on campus is great because I know I was looking at some of the requirements, and of course, we have all of this information on ridemetro.org, but, you know, talking about K through 12 students, current school ID or report card or a class schedule. For college students, again, government-issued photo ID, proof of credit hours, you know, the current class schedule, letter from college verifying you’re a current student. So, there’s different ways to verify that you’re a current active student, but it’s great to hear that it’s not always—you have to take all of this documentation to one of the METRO RideStores. And like I said, many more of these details are available on ridemetro.org/summeroffun or even just /summer. And I love our new website, which launched several months ago because if you just go to ridemetro.org and type in “Students ride for free,” or you type in “Summer of fun” in the search box, it’s also going to find it. So, that’s also very helpful. While we’re talking about…

DW:  Yes.  

DD:  …saving money, though. That discounted METRO Q Fare Card is not just for the summer, right? I mean, there are other discounted trips year-round for people who have one of those.  

DW:  That’s correct. And if you have a discounted Fare Card, basically, you’re paying 60 cents for our local bus, our METRORail, our METRORapid, METRO’s Curb2Curb, year-round. This covers grade school students, college students, seniors, and those with disabilities. Again, you can find that information if you visit ridemetro.org and click on “Fares.”  

DD:  That’s great. So, even when the Summer of Fun ends, we still have the fun going because you can ride—that’s pretty cheap: 60 cents a ride year-round. And before we go, because I know you’re very busy. We all stay very busy here at METRO, and I can hear your emails going in the background.  

DW:  [laughs]  

DD:  So, I can’t imagine how many emails you have stacking up right now. But before we go, let’s talk about Rider Rewards real quick. I think Rider Rewards that falls under your area within METRO, correct?  

DW:  Yes, it does. It’s a fantastic program. The Rider Rewards Program is basically a loyalty program, which allows anyone of our riders who has a METRO Q Card to present their Q Cards at one of our participating partnership locations. We have over 100 partners in our program, and you basically show your METRO Q Card. If you have a mobile ticket, if you have a vending machine ticket, any kind of fare medium, you show it to one of our partners, and they give you a discount—anywhere from ten (10%) to fifteen (15%) percent to a free beverage. But these programs are vital because they provide loyalty, and it just gives benefits back to our community and to our riders, showing them that we appreciate them. And it really just allows us to expand our services because we’ve also reached out into the Park and Ride area partners. We have a few in the Grand Parkway area. We have a couple in the Kingwood area. So, this also allows folks who are using our services to get to and from home to perhaps call in an order and, when they get off the bus, go pick up that pizza for the family, and get their discount at a participating partner location.  

DD:  And it’s not just for the summer. This is a year-round savings.  

DW:  Absolutely.  

DD:  So, I encourage everyone to check out this Rider Rewards list. And it’s not just for students. It’s for everybody that’s a METRO user.  

DW:  Yeah.  

DD:  Ridemetro.org/riderrewards. I was looking at it. A little bit of a tongue twister there. Rider rewards. [laughs]

DW:  [laughs]

DD:  I saw lots of restaurants, museums, the zoo, Houston City tours. 

DW:  Yeah.  

DD:  And like you said, some of the discounts are just a few dollars off, or it’s based on a percentage. One that I saw that piqued my interest was UH Athletics offering fifty (50%) percent off all home games. That’s a really cool advantage there.  

DW:  Yes. It is.  

DD:  Before I let you go, I just want to ask, and I know we kind of touched on this earlier. I am going to ask you again:  Why is it so important in your mindset about using METRO? Why is it so important to get people involved as early as possible in their lives? Why give this opportunity to students? 

DW:  So, Doug, I will say to you that I grew up in the city. And in the city, when you don’t have a vehicle as a mode of transportation, you very quickly learn that transit and all the different modes, whether it’s a taxi cab, a train, or a bus, they’re your best friends. So, I think that this program is very near and dear to my heart because you have to teach riders about transit when they’re young. They grow up to be our talented and loyal advocates for ridership. This is how you build the future of METRO. You have to invest in young riders, and they will give back when they get those wonderful jobs in our workforce areas. And they don’t choose their vehicles. They choose METRO as their mode of transportation. This is where it begins.  

DD:  I think a lot of people overlook the advantage of even when you’re paying the full fare, a $1.25 for most of our services, they overlook that advantage of the amount of money that you can save.  

DW:  Yes.  

DD:  And if people could just overcome that fear or whatever their mindset is, and they feel like they can’t do it. The thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars people can save. And it’s not that they can’t own a car anymore. Even if you just do it a few days out of the week. You know, maybe Monday, Wednesday, Fridays, you take public transit. You’re still going to save hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of dollars every single year just by cutting back a little bit on how much you use your personal vehicle.  

DW:  That’s correct.  

DD:  Okay. Well, thank you, again, so much for joining us on the Next Stop, Danicel. 

DW:  Thank you, Doug. Thank you for having me. 

DD:  Love talking about all the ways you can save money with METRO. So, that wraps it up for this edition. Thank you, as well, to you, the listener, and all of our METRO riders out there. As a reminder, please make sure you check out ridemetro.org/summeroffun to see how students can get those free rides this summer. And while you’re on our site, make sure you search for the word “podcast” to listen to more episodes of the Next Stop. I’m Doug Delony. As always, drive less and do more with Houston METRO.  

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