MN: Free city bus rides available to Duluth students, school staff

A six-month pilot program last year demonstrated that Duluth Public Schools students and staff will use free public transit.

DTA Pass will return Monday after the school district secured one-time funding through June 30, 2026. All district staff and high school students at Denfeld, East and the Alternative Learning Center can use Duluth Transit Authority buses for free with a school ID during the week and on weekends. Free rides will be available during the summer as well.

"On the heels of a successful pilot program, we are very pleased to officially partner with Duluth Public Schools," DTA General Manager Rod Fournier said in a news release. "The program will provide meaningful, safe, and reliable transportation to high school students and district staff."

During the pilot program from Jan. 16 to June 7, 2024, the DTA tracked 44,900 trips and an average of 401 trips each day. In May 2024 alone, 12,362 rides were tallied.

The Duluth School Board approved a memorandum of understanding Tuesday between the district and DTA.

The district will reimburse the DTA at a rate of $1.20 per ride on its fixed-route service and $2.40 per ride on its STRIDE Paratransit (service for passengers with disabilities), up to a maximum of $75,000 for the rest of the 2024-25 fiscal year and $150,000 for the 2025-26 fiscal year.

Board member Henry Banks has advocated for free public transportation.

"I think this is an exciting time that we are bringing this back for our students in our high schools and faculty, staff," he said Tuesday.

"It's important in the district," Superintendent John Magas said, "especially in a district like ours where there are sometimes students who have been historically underserved."

Magas said that for special education field trips and other excursions into the community, public transit "not only gives our students the life skill of using public transportation, but it also decreases the impact on our already strained transportation system and allows us to have more of those opportunities."

"This allows kids to have access to after-school activities because they can go to practice, they can do whatever they need to do, then they can hop on the bus when they are finished," board Chair Kelly Durick Eder said.

Latasaija Garner, a school board student representative from Denfeld, said she knows many students at her school who don't have transportation.

"I enjoyed it last year, just knowing that everybody at Denfeld had a way to get home, or to school or anywhere they need to go," she said.

Kate Dean, who represents East High School on the school board, said she will tell others about the program.

"At least at East, this isn't something I've heard anything about. ... I didn't know this was available to us," she said. "I think this is such an important program."

Anthony Bonds, assistant superintendent of teaching, learning and equity, said in the news release that DTA Pass "hits on every one of our strategic directions: supporting every student, advancing equity and improving systems."

"We are extremely excited to offer this option to our students and staff as a way for all of them to get to work and school safely," he said. "Last school year we decreased our transportation radius for students to 1 mile from their school and this partnership will allow us, and the DTA, to cover that 1-mile radius in an equitable way."

© 2025 the Duluth News Tribune (Duluth, Minn.).
Visit www.duluthnewstribune.com.
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.