By Wesley Smith and Cole Villena

Update September 3, 2025:

This week, we signed a contract to continue the Walk Bike Bus Program for existing members for another year. We're grateful for WeGo's willingness to work with us on a plan that allows us to spread out our renewal fee over time.

Update August 26, 2025:

We’re writing to give an update on our Walk Bike Bus Pass program. The pass has been one of our favorite membership perks since we introduced it in 2023, and it’s helped grow our membership and increase our organization’s reach. Recently, however, WeGo has proposed changes that would increase your price from $25 to $50 per pass in the short-term — and could make it impossible for us to sustainably continue the program in the future.

We’re working hard to make sure we can continue the program. In the meantime, we want to help you understand what’s going on and what’s next. As we manage these changes, we are putting an indefinite pause on new QuickTicket memberships. Our priority at this time is communicating clearly with our current cardholders.

Any cards that are currently active will continue to function through their renewal date. Look out for additional communication regarding your individual renewal date soon.

About our program

For the past two years, we’ve offered discounted annual transit passes to our members as a benefit of membership through WeGo Ride. It’s been an incredibly successful program: Last year, our 782 passholding members took 64,169 bus rides and 15,022 rides on the WeGo Star commuter train. According to WeGo, that accounts for nearly a quarter of all rides through the WeGo Ride program.

For some of our members, the pass has been a fun perk that’s encouraged them to take the bus every now and then. Others, including several of our staffers, started bus commuting regularly thanks to the pass. And many of our cardholders, including those from our nonprofit partners like the Oasis Center, have relied on the bus for years. Since Nashville still hasn’t launched a free or reduced fare program, our Walk Bike Bus Pass is a lifeline, providing an affordable, reliable way to get around the city.

While the pass has been a popular perk that’s helped grow our membership, which helps us carry out our mission citywide, Walk Bike Nashville has never made money from selling the passes themselves. The passes are available through the WeGo Ride program, which lets companies buy passes in bulk for their employees. Walk Bike has acted as an “employer,” and the $25 we’ve charged members per pass is the same amount we pay WeGo for each pass. In fact, we  lose money on credit card fees from these transactions, and our staff spends several hours per week on QuickTicket-related administrative tasks.

We’re also required to pay for all of our active passes at once during an annual renewal period at the end of August. Based on our ridership, that means we budgeted $21,375 to renew the program this year. 

WeGo’s proposed changes

On June 25, we reached out to WeGo to discuss renewal for the upcoming year. We did not hear back, nor did we receive a response after several follow-ups. On August 7, less than a month out from our renewal date, we finally heard back from WeGo. We were informed that our rate for QuickTickets — the price you pay as a user — was increasing from $25 to $50 for any new or renewed passes going forward. That was a surprise to us, as based on previous conversations, we were expecting a maximum $5 rate hike going into our next contract.

But there was a bigger impact: Since we renew our active passes all at once, we were now being asked to pay an additional $19,550 with almost no notice.

The details of this contract can be hard to understand, but we’ll put it plainly: We are a small nonprofit. We cannot make an unexpected payment of nearly $20,000 with less than a month’s notice.

Since WeGo informed us of the rate hike, we’ve met with multiple agency officials to try and understand this situation and to explain how it will significantly — and immediately — impact our budget. WeGo officials told us that our rates are increasing because our users ride the bus at such a high rate that the company’s “per ride revenue” is extremely low. While increasing rates for high users makes some business sense, it’s hard to understand why Nashville’s bus company would take action that disincentivizes people from riding the bus.

Info for Cardholders

We are confident we can negotiate a more reasonable payment plan with WeGo that will allow us to continue the program for another year. Due to the rate hike, however, your annual QuickTicket rate will increase from $25 to $50 to match the increase of cost for Walk Bike. Once again, this would not bring in any profit for our organization: 100% of the fee would be paid directly back to WeGo.

Here’s how the rate increase will affect you:

• • Your rate will increase on your renewal date. For example, if you received your QuickTicket on March 1, 2025, your rate will increase on March 1, 2026. Your card will continue to work until your renewal date.
  • Before your renewal date, Walk Bike Nashville will contact you with instructions to OPT-IN to the new $50 rate. The card will function the same way, giving unlimited rides for one user on all WeGo buses and the WeGo Star.
  • If you do not opt-in to the new rate, your card will be cancelled automatically on your renewal date. Cards will remain active until your renewal date whether or not you opt-in.  
  • If you want to cancel your QuickTicket membership but remain a Walk Bike Nashville member, no action is needed.
  • If you wish to cancel your Walk Bike Nashville membership, email [email protected].

Cards that renew before October 1 will not be affected by the rate increase this year.

If circumstances change and we are unable to come to an agreement with WeGo, all of our cards will be deactivated on October 1. We are doing everything we can to keep that from happening. In the event it does, we will communicate more details at that time.

What’s next

We’ve been proud to offer the Walk Bike Bus Pass to our members, and the success of our program has shown there’s a high demand for affordable annual bus passes in Nashville. We also acknowledge that the WeGo Ride program, even with these proposed increased rates, provides an excellent value for transit users.

But we’re concerned that WeGo would propose such a drastic price hike with such little notice. WeGo must outline specific policies and structures to make the program sustainable for its partners. We look forward to sharing more thoughts on that soon. Until then, our focus is on communicating with our existing QuickTicket members and renewing a contract that is financially feasible for our organization.

Thank you for your patience as we navigate this tricky situation. We’ll give you more information as soon as we can.