|
Some Dal Students Oppose Mandatory Metro Transit U-Pass |
|
|
|
Written by D.L. McCracken
|
|
Wednesday, 18 January 2006 |
Daily commuters who rely on Metro Transit to transport them to and from their work place each day may have noticed that their bus has been a bit more packed than usual lately. No, it isn't the beginnings of a hiring surge within the HRM. The reason you may be suddenly forced to stand in the aisle in an over-crowded bus is the result of the implementation of the Metro Transit U-Pass and those extra riders are in fact student bodies - 12,000 student bodies.
Dalhousie University is the latest post-secondary institution to adopt the Metro Transit U-Pass which for a fee allows students unlimited ridership on Metro transit busses and ferries. As of January 2006, HRM busses have in theory added en masse 12,000 new riders to their existing fleet. At a cost of just over a million dollars, the transit authority is planning to add several busses to their fleet but not immediately.
The U-Pass is being utilized by universities and colleges across Canada and indeed throughout North America and most will agree that public transit use is a 'necessary evil'. Communities across the country are becoming increasingly concerned over harmful emissions emanating from too many private vehicles travelling into our city cores on a daily basis. Most students would agree that in principle, being offered a fairly inexpensive alternative can only be beneficial to our current bruised and battered environment.
But not everyone at Dal is happy about the way in which the U-Pass was thrust upon them. Because the U-Passes are purchased in bulk by the university from Metro Transit at a cost of just over $1 million, that money must be reimbursed by the university. The most effective manner in which to get back that money is to make the U-Pass mandatory to all full-time students.
And therein lies the problem for a small but well established percentage of Dal students who already have in place their own form of transportation whether that is their own car, their own car pooling arrangements, on-campus students and those who live on the outskirts of the HRM in places that Metro Transit does not service.
These students are expressing frustrated concern that they have been offered no means of opting out of the U-Pass service. Metro Transit and Dalhousie offer only two acceptable reasons for opting out of the U-Pass program - if one has a disability or if one is visually impaired.
One fifth-year Dal student who will continue to use his own vehicle to go to and from classes says, "I pay well over $100 for a parking pass as it is. Sure, I'll pay the bus pass if Dal gives me a free parking pass."
Initially the pass will cost each full-time Dal student $58 a term which breaks down to $14 per month. Yes, many will call it a bargain. But to those students at Dal who will not or cannot use the pass, that extra $14 per month amounts to nothing more than yet another tax from which they receive no benefit except perhaps to subsidize those who will be using the U-Pass.
That same fifth-year student wonders, "Why am I subsidizing both Dal students and Metro Transit by paying for this thing? We already pay among the highest tuition in Canada."
According to the TRAX Ecology Action Centre who initiated U-Pass discusson in 2000, Dalhousie is the second university in the HRM to incorporate the U-Pass. Saint Mary's University began the program two years ago. Mount Saint Vincent University is in the process of student surveys and is expected to adopt the system later this year.
After universities in the HRM have signed onto the U-Pass system, TRAX will focus their efforts on similar workplace initiatives.
In the meantime, many Dal students are now being mandated to pay for a service they will never use. Sounds very much like many federal government programs. Perhaps at least part of the reasoning behind a mandatory bus pass is a method of preparing these young people for "life on the outside" but this writer can see no benefit in creating such cynicism so early in the lives of our future leaders. |
