![](\"http:\/\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2256\/1811871961_6be604ae85.jpg?v=0\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Vancouver has one. Halifax does, too. Same with Calgary and Chicago. Even London, Ontario is a member of this not-so-exclusive club. But Toronto isn’t. Not yet, anyways.<\/p>\n
What Toronto doesn’t have that so many other cities — large and small — do is a universal transit pass for post-secondary students. Charged as part of each student’s annual fees, the U-Pass provides unlimited access to public transit from September to April at a significantly reduced rate.<\/p>\n
In his 2006 election platform, Mayor David Miller promised to bring a U-Pass to campuses across Toronto after students’ union leaders (myself included) began working in earnest with the TTC on the most recent iteration of the plan in early 2005. However, no mandatory fee can be levied on students without first being approved by referendum so Miller, TTC chair Adam Giambrone and TTC vice-chair Joe Mihevc have been on a road show since late last year encouraging students to bring the idea to referendum at their respective campuses.<\/p>\n
Although there are many valid questions that have been asked by students, I believe that the proposed U-Pass, at $60 per month ($51 after the tax credit), is as good a deal as students in Toronto can expect because, without a doubt, this will be a money saver for the vast majority of them.<\/p>\n
Before I move on to why I believe this is a good deal for students, let me first provide a bit of background on how the price point was reached.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
In 2006, TTC agreed to invest in market research to determine how students commute for all purposes (TTC, GO, car, cycling, walking and combinations of some of the above), how many times students use the TTC, how they pay their fares (cash, tokens, Metropass, etc), whether they’re agreeable to a U-Pass and how much they would use a U-Pass if they had one (there were other questions asked but those are the most important). Using that data, TTC was able to compile figures that tell us how much money students at each campus spend per year on TTC. That number was then used to calculate a monthly average for every student in Toronto (the cost of the U-Pass). That number worked out to about $62 and TTC agreed to reduce it to $60, including a $1 per student administration fee that would pay for the cards and other administrative costs. The TTC also agreed that it would not include the cost of adding additional service to cope with the increased demand by students in the cost of the pass (a value of between $5 and $10 million per year). Additionally, the TTC agreed that when the Metropass price was increased to $109 per month, they would continue to offer students the $60 deal and only increase that price if there were future Metropass price increases and then only by the same percentage as the regular pass was increased to ensure the same ratio of savings for students.<\/p>\n
Although a separate price was calculated for each campus, students’ union leaders asked the TTC to average all the numbers together because we were working on the premise that students shouldn’t pay differential transit fares. As a result, commuter campuses (those with high concentrations of 905 students, like York and Seneca College, for example) had an average monthly cost much lower than $60 while several were much higher.<\/p>\n
Further, recent negotiations by the TTC with York Region Transit and GO Transit have yielded positive results. For students who use either of those services, the value of the U-Pass can be applied to GO or YRT passes (negotiations are still ongoing with other GTA transit operators).<\/p>\n
So, with that in mind, here is my case for why Ryerson, George Brown (Casa Loma and St. Jamestown campuses) and OCAD (generalizations throughout the rest of this post about joining only regard these three schools) should go to referendum on the U-Pass and why the students at those schools should vote in Yes in that referendum.<\/p>\n
Other schools, however, should wait until they have better transit that serves their campus and\/or the TTC is able to strike a deal with other public transit operators that serve more of their students to ensure that the vast majority of students are well served by this price point. That said, York University and U of T’s Scarborough Campus may find this deal beneficial if they can determine what percentage of their students use YRT and GO Transit, and U of T St. George Campus students will benefit financially (they would receive a $60 pass that is actually worth closer to $76) but not as significantly as Ryerson, George Brown and OCAD.<\/p>\n
Because most students have to think about their next rent cheque first, I’ll start with economics as justification for supporting this proposal. Although $60 is billed as the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153break even point\u00e2\u20ac\u009d by the TTC, it’s really much higher for my recommended schools. At OCAD, the campus with the least number of students who use TTC as, or as part of, their main mode of transportation, the figure is still 78% (includes people who use TTC, Car + TTC and GO + TTC). Because ridership is so high at OCAD, the average student spends $83 per month on TTC fares. Add the $6 discount the TTC is offering because it didn’t increase the U-Pass price when the last fare increase happened and OCAD students are actually getting a pass worth $89 per month for $60. The other campuses all have greater TTC and GO ridership and pay more per month than OCAD students in TTC fares (George Brown at Casa Loma tops the list at 91% and the St. James campus spends the most on transit at $93 per month, not including GO fares, which is significantly more than the VIP Metropass cost at the time this survey was done).<\/p>\n
Also, consider that the tax credit for monthly and yearly transit passes will apply to this deal, bringing down the cost for the student to $51 per month (for those students who don’t earn enough to get the credit, my understanding is that it can be claimed through your parents’ tax return). At that price point, a U-Pass holder would have to take two or three round trips per week to break even on their investment.<\/p>\n
For most students, saying yes or no to this proposition will be a matter of dollars and cents. Fair enough. However, there are also some important public policy objectives at play here. As someone who believes that ridership needs to increase for our city to be healthy and economically successful, it stunned me to find out that TTC ridership falls off dramatically at the age when most students complete their undergraduate degree (about 22 or 23 years old because they have the means to purchase a car). By providing students with a discounted Metropass, there is a higher likelihood (though by no means certainty) students will lead transit-friendly lifestyles after graduation. Additionally, for those students who drive (it never ceases to amaze me how many Ryerson students cram their car into the garage on Victoria St.) this will be an incentive to get out of their car, thereby lessening their burden on the environment and our increasingly congested roads.<\/p>\n
The only way that this U-Pass deal doesn’t stack up is in cost comparison to other cities. However, there are a few key differences between Toronto and other cities that have much lower U-Pass rates. In Mississauga and London, Ontario, for example, the cost is under $100 per year and in Vancouver it’s $25 per month. Why is Toronto so much more expensive? There’s two primary reasons. First, as most readers here know all too well, the TTC is the least subsidized transit system in North America and, as such, relies on the fare box much more heavily to finance the system than anyone who doesn’t sit in Queen’s Park or the House of Commons would like. Second, the smaller cities are essentially building their public transit system on the backs of students. At Western, the London transit system just added a couple of bus routes and used the rest of the money in general revenues. They could do that because most students weren’t riders to begin with so with the exception of adding a little service, the U-Pass was all net revenue. For the TTC it is a very different arrangement because there are so many students who already use the system and it’s in no financial position to offer a larger subsidy to students than it is currently proposing.<\/p>\n
Although I realize that it’s hard to get to “yes” sometimes, in other cities, once students went through the difficult period of deciding to start a U-Pass program, the U-Pass became one of the most popular features of campus life. It can in Toronto, too — especially for Ryerson, George Brown and OCAD because of the obvious financial benefit that the U-Pass will bring to the vast, vast majority of their students.<\/p>\n
The deal as it stands has been on the table for more than a year now. If students are going to take advantage of the $60 price they will have to make a decision in the near future. However, to this point, students’ union leaders haven’t put this question to their students in the form of a referendum. As time ticks down to the point when $60 becomes $66, it’s my hope the student leadership at Ryerson, George Brown and OCAD will provide their students the opportunity to decide whether they like what the TTC has put on the table. The 78%+ of students who will benefit from a U-Pass should insist on it.<\/p>\n
Photo by <\/em>Locator<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"