{"id":8698,"date":"2025-10-17T17:34:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-17T17:34:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/8698\/"},"modified":"2025-10-17T17:34:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T17:34:08","slug":"houston-voters-can-get-free-rides-to-and-from-the-polls-houston-public-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/8698\/","title":{"rendered":"Houston voters can get free rides to and from the polls \u2013 Houston Public Media"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\"METRO<\/a><\/p>\n

Daisy Espinoza \/ Houston Public Media<\/p>\n

Pictured is a METRO light rail vehicle in February 2024.<\/p>\n

Houston-area residents who plan to vote in the upcoming election can again get free rides to and from the polls from the region’s public transit provider.<\/p>\n

The Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County (METRO) is continuing an election-season tradition by offering free rides to voters during Election Day on Nov. 4 as well as during the early voting period, which spans from Oct. 20-31. The promotion applies to METRO’s buses and light rail<\/a> lines, along with its curb2curb microtransit service and METROLift program, an ADA-accessible paratransit service.<\/p>\n

The agency said in a Friday news release that in order to take advantage of the free rides, passengers need to show their voter identification or “other approved documentation” to the operator or fare inspector. METRO did not immediately respond to a request for clarification about other acceptable forms of documentation.<\/p>\n

The free round-trip rides will be offered from 7 a.m.-7 p.m. Monday through Saturday and noon-7 p.m. Sunday during early voting, and from 7 a.m.-7 p.m. on Election Day.<\/p>\n

RELATED: How to vote in the November 2025 election in Harris County<\/a><\/p>\n

Ballots in Harris County include a special election to fill the U.S. House of Representatives seat in Texas’ 18th Congressional District<\/a>, which has been vacant since the March death of U.S. Rep. Sylvester Turner<\/a>. There is also a special election for an at-large position on the Houston City Council<\/a>, as Letitia Plummer is vacating her seat to run for Harris County judge<\/a> next year.<\/p>\n

There are also several school board elections in the Houston area, including for Houston ISD and Cy-Fair ISD, along with bond elections for some local municipalities and utility districts.<\/p>\n

Voters across the state will weigh in on 17 proposed amendments<\/a> to the Texas Constitution. The propositions are related to issues such as property taxes, bail practices and the establishment of a statewide water fund.<\/p>\n

Harris County will operate 70 polling locations<\/a> during early voting and about 600 on Election Day.<\/p>\n

METRO passengers can plan their trips to the polls by using the RideMETRO app<\/a> or by visiting RideMETRO.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Daisy Espinoza \/ Houston Public Media Pictured is a METRO light rail vehicle in February 2024. Houston-area residents…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8699,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[8196,2065,6513,288,405,8197,56,58,57,66,5761,8198,223,840,2279],"class_list":["post-8698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-2025-election","tag-early-voting","tag-election-day","tag-elections","tag-harris-county","tag-harris-county-election-day","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news","tag-local","tag-metro","tag-metro-free-transportation","tag-news","tag-transportation","tag-voting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8698"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8698\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}