If you’re riding public transit on Wednesday, busting out a wallet, smartphone or fare card won’t be necessary.
San Diego-area transit agencies are offering free commutes on Oct. 1 for the return of Free Ride Day, which has for years been part of an effort to promote public transit and curb emissions from private vehicles.
No-cost public transit will be offered all day Wednesday on all Metropolitan Transit System and North County Transit District modes, including buses, trolleys and both Coaster and Sprinter trains.
This year’s Free Ride Day will be the sixth since 2018.
In the past, transit officials have reported boosted ridership during the promotion, and this year’s event comes as a MTS ridership continues to climb.
Ridership grew 7% year over year, with 81 million individual rides between June 2024 and June 2025, the transit agency reported last month.
That means ridership has almost been restored to where it was in 2019 before the pandemic, when there were about 85 million individual rides.
Over the last year, trolley ridership grew from about 36 million to 38 million rides, and MTS buses saw ridership climb from about 40 million rides to nearly 43 million.