In an effort to combat chronic absenteeism, VIA bus fares will be covered for students between the ages of 12 to 18 under a new pilot program.\u00a0<\/p>\n
On Monday, District 7 Councilwoman Marina Alderete Gavito announced a program that would pay for student VIA Metropolitan Transit bus fares starting in January.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIn some districts, nearly 4 in 10 high school students miss more than 10% of the year,\u201d Gavito said. \u201cTransportation is one of the top barriers preventing students from getting to school. When students can\u2019t get to school, they fall behind.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
VIA currently offers a semester pass for $28.50 that allows students to ride as much as they want. CEO Jon Gary Herrera said that District 7\u2019s contribution of $150,000 will underwrite semester passes for more than 5,200 students in 2026.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThat investment in what we can become as a community is what we\u2019re talking about today,\u201d Herrera said. \u201cI\u2019m so proud\u2026 to see [Councilwoman Gavito] take this program and put some money behind it and invest in our future.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Real estate developer David Adelman, who previously sat on VIA\u2019s Innovative Services Advisory Group, said that the initiative would allow families to send their children to any school they wanted in San Antonio.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI look forward to a day where we can have a city where transit works and is more functional for families,\u201d he said. \u201cIn order to do that, we need programs like this that get people involved in public transit.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Gavito said she hopes\u00a0 others will contribute funds for the program. \u201cThis is important because San Antonio needs to invest in its young people,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In an effort to combat chronic absenteeism, VIA bus fares will be covered for students between the ages…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":434241,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5133],"tags":[5229,201269,201270,101622,201271,7202,7203,358,522,3187,7815,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,201272,123708,11887],"class_list":{"0":"post-434240","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-antonio","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-chronic-absenteeism","10":"tag-councilwoman-marina-alderete-gavito","11":"tag-district-7","12":"tag-marina-gavito","13":"tag-san-antonio","14":"tag-sanantonio","15":"tag-texas","16":"tag-transportation","17":"tag-tx","18":"tag-typedaily","19":"tag-united-states","20":"tag-united-states-of-america","21":"tag-unitedstates","22":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","23":"tag-us","24":"tag-usa","25":"tag-via-bus","26":"tag-via-metropolitan-transit","27":"tag-wc-less-than-500"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115686376944401711","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=434240"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434240\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/434241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=434240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=434240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=434240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}