This story is part of the Nashville Banner’s ZIP Code Project. The yearlong community engagement effort assigns Banner staffers to various ZIP codes across the city, where they spend significant time listening to residents and elevating stories directly from the community.
Karen Penley rides the bus once a month to get what she needs at the grocery store, which for her, is a Dollar General on Thompson Lane.
Penley is a resident of the Tony Sudekum Apartments in Napier. The neighborhood used to have a Dollar General within walking distance for its residents, who frequented it for toiletries, groceries and other essentials, but it closed unannounced last December, leaving the community in a food desert.
To get to and from the Dollar General on Thompson, Penley’s bus fares cost $4 in total and 30 minutes each way.
She said this is the only ride she takes each month because it can be difficult for her to find bus fare. She, like many other people living in her community, doesn’t have access to stable transportation. As a bus rider with a disability, she could be eligible for discounted fares, but she can’t afford to take the bus to apply — you have to submit an application in person at the WeGo Central Ticketing Office.
“I don’t have that kind of money to ride the bus and take care of the business that I seriously need to take care of,” Penley said. “The only place I go to is the grocery store because I don’t have bus fare like that.”
Since 2023, Walk Bike Nashville, in partnership with WeGo, has offered discounted QuickTickets for community members. Walk Bike distributes the passes to other organizations, such as Oasis Center and Inspiritus, which then give them out to low-income residents.
But in August, the organization had to temporarily halt the program due to a rate change, leaving nearly 800 cardholders in limbo. A Walk Bike spokesperson said they were only given a month’s notice to pay WeGo the new rate of $39,100, up from $19,550.
Walk Bike Nashville signed a contract with WeGo to ensure its existing cardholders could keep their discount for at least the following year, while the rate for cardholders increased from $25 per pass to $50. The new rate Walk Bike Nashville has to pay has been spread out over the next year.
“I think our QuickTicket program highlights the need for an annual program,” Cole Villena, the communications director for Walk Bike Nashville, told the Banner. “The QuickTicket really shows that there is a demand for that, not just among urbanist types or folks who want to use the bus every now and then, but for low-income folks.”
Expanding opportunities
Unveiled last year, the Choose How You Move initiative planned to offer subsidized bus passes for qualified community members. In September, Metro announced the Journey Pass, which will provide low-income riders with free bus passes. Before the announcement, WeGo also offered discounted fares for youth, seniors, riders with disabilities and Medicare cardholders.
Eric Melcher, WeGo’s public information officer, said the organization is partnering with various agencies across Davidson County, such as MDHA, Metro Social Services and the Office of Homeless Services to ensure qualified riders can sign up for the program, which is currently in its pilot phase. Residents who are not currently receiving services from Metro agencies will be able to sign up for passes next year, following the program’s expansion to its second phase, according to WeGo’s most recent press release.
Melcher estimates that up to 70 percent of WeGo’s current ridership will be eligible for the Journey Pass.
“We’re rolling out this program slowly so that we make sure that we can reach people where they are,” Melcher said. “That involves working with partner agencies that are affiliated with Metro Nashville. We’ve had several sessions and we’ve been signing people up. We should be where we need to be in the coming months.”
Nicole Vaughn, a community advocate in Napier, told the Banner that one of the main things residents ask for is bus passes.
During a community safety meeting in August, Vaughn said she asked everyone in the room, which usually includes police officers, residents, MDHA employees and advocates, about how she could access subsidized bus passes for her neighbors, but left with no answers.
“If a community partner to the Napier community is having to use a nonprofit to get this kind of bus pass, and that’s the only resource that we know of that can offer a yearly pass, that says a lot,” she said. “Where is the communication? No matter where you live, if you have a need and you qualify, you should be able to get this resource.”
For the kids
Vaughn told the Banner that Napier’s youth need as many resources to get out of their neighborhood and see the rest of Nashville as possible.
Middle and high school students in Metro Nashville public schools are eligible for free bus rides, provided they have a student ID through WeGo’s StrIDE Program. While high school students are given IDs at the beginning of the year, middle school students need their parents’ permission to receive a school ID. WeGo reported it provided 712,381 StrIDe rides during the 2024-2025 fiscal year.
But Vaughn has heard that not all students have the same access. When she worked at Two Rivers Middle School, she said, the school didn’t have enough money to pay for the machine that makes student IDs. This meant the students couldn’t take advantage of the free bus rides.
On Wednesday, the Metro Action Commission invited community members to sign up for Journey Passes at their main location on Murfreesboro Pike. By 10 a.m., at least 30 people were lined up and ready to do so.
MAC spokesperson Lisa McCrady Beverly told the Banner it was the perfect location for bus riders to sign up, considering the commission’s office is on one of WeGo’s most popular routes.
“We are told that their daily ridership is about 4,000 individuals moving past our building every day,” McCrady Beverly said, “so being on a major bus line also supports what we feel like is helping families or individuals address the transportation needs that they have.”
McCrady Beverly said the Journey Pass, which will be a free three-year pass for eligible riders, is a “game-changer” for the community.
“Many of our families that have small children say that transportation is one of the main barriers,” she said. “WeGo has been a partner with us for many, many years, and so we found out that not only can you get a free bus pass, but that it’s for three years, that’s major. We feel that sometimes all families need is a platform in order for them to go to whatever’s next for them.”
Spreading the word
The commission has been tabling at local Head Start centers to inform the community about the Journey Pass. So far, they’ve gotten 117 potential riders to sign up.
Some community members, like Manaen Hall, believe that while the Journey Pass is a step in the right direction, there are still aspects that could be improved.
Hall became a bus rider after he got in a car crash in 2019 and couldn’t pay for another car. He saw room for improvement firsthand and decided to become an advocate, joining the Transit Now Nashville board. While frequency was a primary concern when he first started riding, Hall said this has improved tremendously.
When he and other activists helped advocate for the Choose How You Move referendum, they made sure free fares were included and one of the first items to be implemented once it passed. While the document stated that the rollout of free fares and the technological enhancements to support them would be automatic, Hall said the reality is far from what was promised.
“It feels very cumbersome,” he said. “The goal should be getting all the people that are eligible the passes as easy as possible because we know who’s poor. We have federal programs like WIC and SNAP that we can tap into and see, ‘Oh, here are all the people that qualify on these programs.’ We can mail them a bus pass.”
Hall said that he had heard from a WeGo employee that the organization has been tabling and hosting events at MDHA properties to encourage residents to sign up for a bus pass, and that the participation rate has been 30 to 50 percent. Hall thinks it should be higher.
“It’s like every single person that’s living there should get access to free transit,” Hall said. “Ultimately, I just want people that are poor to be able to access it for free, at minimum. Unfortunately, it feels like they’re putting up a lot of barriers to that.”
So far, Penley, who lives in an MDHA property, said she hasn’t heard anything from MDHA or other community organizations about signing up for a potential free bus pass. But she’s hopeful about the Journey Pass.
From Vaughn’s vantage point, her neighbors need more resources and better “information accessibility.”
“Our folks need something that is sustainable,” she said. “They can know that, okay, one pass is just one pass. That’s one day, or some of the passes arrived, so it may just be one trip. But what happens, especially with your first month of working a job where you don’t get paid for weeks, you need to be able to get there.”
Related
link