- Students who are "forced" to buy the pass "might as well use it," and will experience the nice parts of the city they would not have otherwise.
- For that reason, I don't feel they're subsidizing the transportation of other students, but are having a door to the city opened. Ottawa is more than just Bank St to Range Rd to the Market to Lees Ave, folks.
- It'll make intercampus events more accessible to the general population of students, so we can encourage students to go to events at Carleton/Algonquin/La Cité and they actually will
- It's carbon neutral - changing the primary mode of transportation of as many drivers as cyclists
- The fee increase is negligable - it's only the price of textbooks.
- It's a *universal* pass, so you can even bus to Navan or Richmond if you want some hot sauce or... whatever Richmond has to offer
- Ridership on the bus will increase, which means the routes will be improved instead of stripped away like is likely happening for the summer
- and selfishly, I will save money as I am a student who buses to school.
However, the "Yes" campaign should not have included "save money" as a platform point. They're just going to agitate the already skeptical Sandy Hill annd Residence students and lose a large portion of the vote. For that, and the lack of an opt-out, it's going to get shot down, unfortunately.
My ONLY complaint will arise if the "no opt-out" policy includes students on out-of-town work terms or student exchange. While it's assumed that that will be the case, we'll see what happens if and when it's implemented.
By the by, I hate the argument that this is contradictory for our campaign to lower tuition fees. It's not. We're working to make education more accessible, not cut funding to student services on campus. If we can one day talk the governments into paying for our tuition AND funding the SFUO and the uPass, that'd be thrilling, but let's do one thing at a time people.
I agree with your arguments to an extent, and especially like your last point, but I'm not sure the bus pass would open the door for me personally. I keep it pretty close to campus, I guess because I volunteer here and there with projects and also find it hard enough to keep up with all the awesome events the federated bodies and clubs are pumping out. If it does pass, however, I sincerely hope you're right, and that people put it to good use by exploring out of their comfort zone, even if it's only once in awhile. Another point to the bus pass that might be good is student's will be able to shop better (ie. take the bus to food basics, instead of walking to metro or loblaws which can be significantly pricier). I'm not sure if the savings would equal the value of the pass though... but maybe combined with the other benefits it's something to think about.
ReplyDeletePs. you should edit your comment settings so people can just post with their name. You now have a link to a very old an outdated blog.
ReplyDeleteNot quite related, but I feel that these slow moving elections need a bit of a boost!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/profile?user=SFUOMarketing#g/u