City of Syracuse to offer employees Centro bus service at no cost

SYRACUSE, N.Y. — The Syracuse Common Council on Wednesday, Sept. 6 unanimously approved Syracuse Mayor Ben Walsh’s plan to make Centro bus service available to employees at no cost.

City workers will be able to ride Centro buses by showing their employee-identification cards to bus drivers. Service will be available seven days a week on all Centro bus routes. Under the three-year agreement between the city and Centro, the City of Syracuse will reimburse the bus system for rides provided to city employees.

“We want to make it as easy as possible for our employees to get to and from work and to get anyplace else they need to go. Centro is a convenient and reliable transportation option that we are proud to support,” Walsh said in a release. “In a competitive hiring environment, free Centro service also makes the City an even more attractive place to work. Employees who choose Centro can avoid hundreds, even thousands of dollars in costs.”

Walsh also believes the city’s commitment to provide Centro bus service as an employee benefit is a “model other employers can follow,” per the release.

“We hope this is the first of many such employers to offer this as an option for employees within our system,” Brian Schultz, CEO of Centro, said. “Additionally, city employees will be among the first users of our mobile ticketing system that we expect to debut in coming months, further enhancing the user experience.”

Centro is the public-transportation system serving Syracuse, Oswego, Utica, Rome and Auburn.

It operates the Centro Transit Hub in downtown Syracuse and the Regional Transportation Center, which offers bus and train service, and 10 Park-N-Ride locations. Centro recently launched new regular service from downtown to Syracuse Hancock International Airport as well.