Free public transit Saturday in the LA area to honor Rosa Parks

Free rides are offered all day Saturday on public transit in Los Angeles County and San Bernardino County to celebrate the sixth annual Transit Equity Day, in honor of the anniversary of the civil rights icon Rosa Parks.

Trains, buses, and light rail lines operated by LA Metro, Metrolink, the Los Angeles Department of Transportation, and the San Bernardino County Transportation Authority offer free rides.

“We are offering free rides on our bus, train and bike system on Saturday February 4 to honor Transit Fairness Day and the birthday of civil rights icon Rosa Parks, who in 1955 refused to give up her seat because she was black. said an LA Metro ad.

The Los Angeles Transit Agency said turnstiles at train stations would be unlocked and passengers would be free to board without using electronic card readers or fare boxes.

The system’s Metro Bike Share is also free for 30-minute rides. To redeem the free ride, customers were asked to select “1-Ride” at any Metro Bike Share kiosk, online or in the Metro Bike Share app, and use the code 020423. The code can be used several times during the day.

For Metro Micro, the on-demand ridesharing service, riders can pre-book the ride online and use code 2023 for a free lift.

On Metrolink regional trains, passengers were told that they would not need a ticket to board a train operating in the five-county Metrolink region.

Also free throughout the day on Saturday are San Bernardino County transit providers including Metrolink, Basin Transit, Mountain Transit, Needles Area Transit, Omnitrans and Victor Valley Transit Authority.

LA Metro hailed the “action and courage” of Parks, who died in 2005. In 1955, she refused to leave her bus seat for a white passenger in Montgomery, Ala. His lawsuit led to the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that segregation on public transit was unconstitutional, the transit agency said, “an important step in dismantling the Jim Crow laws that have persisted in the United States for a century after the end of the Civil War”.