Until Friday, October 30, anyone in Palo Alto could call a city-run car for a $4 trip across town. Seniors and riders with disabilities paid $2. Today Palo Alto still offers several free ways to get around, and some are more generous than Link was. The new door-to-door rides, transit passes, bikes and late-night credits each come with eligibility rules about age, income or where you work. The free rides with no rules at all are Stanford's Marguerite shuttles, which leave from two stations, not from your front door.
What $26 a Ride Was Paying For
Palo Alto Link started on March 7, 2023, using Measure B Innovative Transit funds. Later, a partnership with Stanford Research Park and two Transportation For Clean Air grants kept the pilot going through October 30, 2026. Rides ran weekdays from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. The city brought it in to replace the Palo Alto Shuttle, the bus system it stopped during the pandemic. Palo Alto Online reported that it worked "like a subsidized Lyft service."
Riders paid $4, but each trip cost the city and its grant funders about $26. When the county grant ran out, the city had to cover roughly $700,000 a year itself, and the City Council voted in June to end its contract with Via, the operator.
At a Finance Committee meeting in May, Chief Transportation Official Ria Hutabarat Lo described the service this way, as Palo Alto Online reported in June:
"It's been a valuable service for certain groups of vulnerable users such as low-income people and seniors. However, it's not financially efficient at $26 per trip."
City staff said many midday Link trips were for errands, doctor visits and prescription pickups. Hutabarat Lo also said the city was essentially paying for trips with one passenger in the car when it would rather support carpools and public transit. That reasoning explains the replacement. The money now goes to specific groups of riders, and most of what it buys is transit passes, bikes and shared rides.
The numbers changed too. The city added $100,000 to its contract with the Palo Alto Transportation Management Association, known as PATMA, bringing its fiscal year 2027 spending on PATMA to $500,000. Staff projected savings of $176,000 this fiscal year and $460,000 a year after that.
The New Map Starts With Who's Riding
PATMA was founded in 2014 to cut down on solo car commuting by people who work in Palo Alto. The city's transition page says it has expanded its programs since October 1 to cover qualifying senior, disabled and low-income residents and workers. Here is how the main options line up, using each program's published rules:
| If you are... | The program | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| A Palo Alto resident 65 or older, or a resident with a disability who is 50 or older | PATMA Accessible Ride Service | Free door-to-door rides for medical visits, errands, social outings, visiting a spouse in care, work, volunteering and exercise |
| Someone who lives or works in Palo Alto, earns below area median income, and will ride transit at least three days a week | PATMA Transit Pass Program | A free pass for Caltrain, VTA, SamTrans or Dumbarton Express |
| Someone who lives or works in Palo Alto, drives alone to work, and earns below area median income | PATMA refurbished bike program | A refurbished bike, while supply lasts |
| A downtown Palo Alto worker below area median income who drives in and gets off late | PATMA late-night Lyft program | Up to 15 rides a month, with up to $10 covered per ride |
| Anyone at all | Stanford Marguerite shuttle and VTA and Caltrain fares | Free shuttle routes and regular transit |
A few of these programs have fine print. The door-to-door service asks you to register online, and PATMA says it will get back to you within one business day. Transit passes renew monthly depending on funding and how much you use the pass, and the Caltrain GoPass option runs as an annual pass through the end of 2026. The Lyft credit covers shifts ending between 10 p.m. and 1 a.m. Monday through Saturday, or between 8 p.m. and 1 a.m. on Sunday. Riders need a smartphone and an email address, and they have to live in PATMA's Greater Palo Alto Area zone. According to the June report, that zone includes parts of Mountain View, Menlo Park, Redwood City and Los Altos Hills.
The door-to-door rides work through Avenidas, the local nonprofit for older adults, which already ran its own Door to Door service. The city says those rides cover trips within Palo Alto and Stanford. PATMA is giving Avenidas $45,000 to hire another part-time driver, and Avenidas can see who has signed up with PATMA and offer those people rides as needed. "We're trying to help people stay connected to their community," PATMA Executive Director Justine Burt told Palo Alto Online.
For an older parent who used Link for appointments, the door-to-door service is arguably a better deal than before, since the rides are now free instead of $2. Anyone who doesn't fit one of the first four rows of the table now relies on routes that leave from two hubs.
Two Stations Do the Work Link Used to Spread Around Town
Link picked people up at their own addresses. The free options open to everyone start at the Palo Alto Transit Center downtown or at the California Avenue Caltrain station. Stanford says all Marguerite routes are free and open to the public. Most run weekdays and pause on university holidays, and the Shopping Express runs Friday through Sunday.
From the Palo Alto Transit Center:
- P goes up Palm Drive to the Oval on campus.
- MC goes to Hoover Pavilion and the medical center.
- RP goes to Stanford Research Park.
- S goes to Stanford West, Oak Creek Apartments, SLAC and the Rosewood Hotel.
- Shopping Express runs hourly on Fridays and weekends between the Transit Center, the Stanford campus and San Antonio Shopping Center in Mountain View.
From California Avenue Caltrain:
- CAX runs to Stanford Research Park on weekdays, mostly at morning and evening commute hours.
- VTA Route 89 runs to the Palo Alto VA Hospital. VTA retimed some weekday trips on October 26, 2026, to connect better with Caltrain, and its next service change is set for January 11, 2027.
The posted Marguerite timetables are dated 2025, so check Stanford's live schedules before you rely on a particular departure time. Looking further out, VTA's 2027 service plan, approved October 1, 2026, adds a pair of Route 522 stops at El Camino and Grant sometime in 2027.
These routes cover Stanford, the Research Park and the medical center well. They don't take you from a home in Midtown or Barron Park to a dentist on the other side of town. Council member Ed Lauing raised exactly this problem in June, asking whether someone headed across town for a doctor's visit could get there on Palo Alto's limited transit options.
Where the New System Leaves People Without a Ride
When the council took public comment in September, one resident called the change "not a like-for-like swap," according to Palo Alto Online. The same article explained the difference. Link and the old shuttle were open to all residents, workers and visitors, and the voucher programs focus almost entirely on older adults, people with disabilities and other vulnerable groups.
Burt has said the system has gaps. Avenidas serves older adults, so younger residents with disabilities will probably need other options. PATMA plans to steer some of those riders to the paratransit services run by SamTrans and the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority. The city's transition page lists those services along with the Veterans Affairs shuttle:
PATMA says VTA ACCESS is meant for people whose physical, visual or cognitive disabilities keep them from using regular accessible buses and light rail.
The biggest group left out is everyone else. A teenager, a working adult or a visiting relative who doesn't meet the income or age rules no longer has a city-subsidized car to call. Their free choices are the Marguerite routes above, and anything else is a regular fare.
Each program has its own sign-up process, so if someone you know used Link, now is a good time to find their row in the table and register. Burt told Palo Alto Online that PATMA's programs were expanding to take on former Link riders. Questions about the end of Link can go to the city's program contact at [email protected].
At The Fallant Group, we think about how a household actually gets through its week, whether that's a parent who has stopped driving, a teenager getting to practice, or a daily Caltrain commute. If a change like this one has you rethinking whether your current home still fits your family, we'd be glad to talk it through with you. Schedule a Consultation with us.
