Metro and union reach agreement on ‘quote the fare’ bus policy

WASHINGTON - Metro Bus operators will no longer be required to quote the fare without a fully enclosed operator workstation.

The new agreement was announced Thursday by the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) and ATU Local 689, which represents many Metro Bus operators. 

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It comes one month after video showed a bus passenger attacking a bus operator, by repeatedly hitting the driver in the face.

The backstory:

Before the agreement, a recent policy change said that bus operators had to quote the fare to passengers, meaning they'd have to tell customers that it costs $2.25 to ride the bus. But the bus operators’ union representatives said that can lead to fare disputes, and those disputes can lead to violence.

WMATA officials said they're investing $18 million to put fully enclosed work stations in each of their buses, and they expect that to happen by June 2027. As of now, however, that's not the case.

"The barriers aren’t gonna be 100 percent fail-safe, but that definitely goes a long way to addressing those concerns," said Local 689 spokesperson Benjamin Lynn. "We are really grateful for WMATA for working with us, and our collaborative approach to kind of reach this deal that we think satisfies both sides."

Dig deeper:

The quote the fare policy is part of an effort to combat fare evasion, which has been a major priority for Metro.

Charts provided at a Metro Board of Directors meeting Thursday showed that modernized fare gates have led to a significant reduction in fare evasion on Metro Rail, but while Metro Bus fare evasion is down from its peak of 75%, it’s still well above the agency’s goal of 50%.

Metro plans to have fare evasion education teams out talking to bus riders beginning next week.