Oklahoma City makes streetcar permanently free

Oklahoma City has permanently removed fares from its downtown streetcar after a six-month pilot increased ridership by more than 70 percent.

“Our downtown is walkable, but even in a walkable area, people don’t mind a little boost,” said David Holt, Mayor of Oklahoma City, in a social media post. “In this sense, the streetcar is analogous to the moving sidewalks in an airport.”

The Central Oklahoma Transportation and Parking Authority (COTPA), which operates the EMBARK public transport system, approved the zero-fare service following a pilot that began in January.

Ridership from January to June 2026 was an average of 71 percent higher month on month than during the same period in 2025. June was the streetcar’s busiest month since its launch in 2018, carrying 36,756 passengers.

The OKC Streetcar operates seven days a week, with seven vehicles serving 22 stops across two downtown loops.

Holt said the service provides a “little boost” for visitors without cars, residents and workers travelling between downtown destinations, and people attending events who have parked some distance away.

“The streetcar is for people who have either arrived downtown without a car or would prefer to leave their car in its parking spot,” he said.

Before the pilot, passengers taking journeys of less than five minutes could face spending a similar amount of time using a ticket machine or downloading an app.

“People understandably didn’t want to spend five minutes at a fare machine or downloading an app for a five-minute ride,” Holt said. “The usage of streetcar is very different than the usage of other public transit, but we charged fares in both cases.”

He said the trial demonstrated that the fares had been suppressing demand for the service.

“In government, we don’t measure the success of our services by the profit they turn, because they never have and they never will,” Holt said. “We measure them by their usage. We ask if this is an amenity that the community is using. If the community is using it, it has value.”

Jesse Rush, Director of EMBARK, said the streetcar could improve downtown circulation, ease traffic congestion and boost economic activity as Oklahoma City invests in new projects and prepares to host major events.

Image:  Ivan Kokoulin | Dreamstime.com