Students and advocates press committee to restore free or discounted fares for students and veterans
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Summary
A student and other advocates urged the Appropriations Committee to restore funding for student fare programs and highlighted a $1,000,000 supplemental allocation for veterans fares and a 50% student discount tied to Public Act 25‑65; the student urged fully fare‑free city bus passes for youth.
A speaker who identified himself as Jay thanked the committee for prior appropriations and flagged that the Ticket to Opportunity pilot funding ($6 million appropriated by the Appropriations Committee previously) had been removed during negotiations but that the governor’s supplemental budget includes $1,000,000 to implement veterans free fares and 50% discounts for high school students under Public Act 25‑65.
Oloshe Laborde, a senior at University High School, described student advocacy that produced an ARPA allocation to pilot free city bus passes and presented school‑level data: she said 188 students at her 413‑student school participated in the pilot and that those students spent about $80,000 in three months, including wages from 75 working students; extrapolating across Hartford's 11 schools she estimated roughly $5,000,000 in local economic activity. She urged that discounts are insufficient and that fares should be fully free for students.
Committee staff asked the student to submit her underlying data to staff for follow up; no vote was taken on fare funding during the hearing.
