University students stop your whining. City council has approved the U-Pass pilot project and the City of Ottawa will set aside $3 million in this year’s budget to provide all students at Carleton University and the University of Ottawa with a transit pass at the reduced cost of $145 – a saving of $196.
This should be great news.
How often does the city make things easier or cheaper for people? To make the U-Pass a reality, students must approve referendums at the two universities.
But there’s hitch which has some students up in arms: the pass will be mandatory for all, whether they use OC Transpo or not.
Well , sorry to burst your nearsighted, self-interested bubble, but the whole idea of a universal bus pass is that everybody gets one. It’s all or nothing.
In fact, if the city is offering the U-Pass to some students, it might as well be mandatory for all students in Ottawa, including those at other universities, colleges and high schools.
The mandatory U-Pass will make public transit more affordable, leading more students to ride the bus. This could help the city by relieving traffic at peak times.
It might also be good for those students who live in residence and argue they don’t need a bus pass to get out of their tunnels, get some fresh air, and interact with the outside world.The city has even decided not to cut any transit routes this year.
There are plenty of benefits to the U-Pass for students who drive their own vehicles, as well. On bad-weather days, why not let someone else do the driving? It might reduce the number of accidents during snowstorms and days of icy road conditions.
Why not leave your car at home once a week and take the bus to help cut down on car emissions? Plus taking the bus every once in a while saves money on gas and parking.
The proposed bus pass would cost $145 a semester. That’s about $9 a week. Students can pay anywhere from $5 to $10 a day to park on campus, or if you have a Carleton University parking permit, between $325 and $435 a year. At the University of Ottawa, a parking permit can cost more than $700 a year.
Those are some hefty savings for drivers.
For Ottawa to develop and improve our public transit, we need a larger ridership. Having a mandatory bus pass included into tuition fees means more people will ride the bus.
Being able to opt out of the pass renders the whole idea pretty useless. The same people who buy passes now will continue to buy them, and everyone else will continue not to.
When the U-Pass comes up during the referendums at U of O and Carleton, students need to look beyond their own self-interest and think about the city as a bigger community in which they live.
Students, send the right message to the city. Tell them you want better public transportation for a cheaper price. Tell them you care about the environment. Pass the U-Pass.