Gearing up for the U-Pass Referendum

This article originally appeared in Imprint, University of Waterloo’s official student newspaper
- March 23, 2007

by Michael L. Davenport

Walls around campus have been peppered with posters, debates on Facebook groups are heating up, and forums are being held. And it’s all about everyone’s favourite political issue: the U-Pass.

 

As with all Feds referenda, both “yes” and “no” committees are formed, both charged with the task of raising awareness of the issue, and defending their point of view. With this particular issue, the rift between the yes and no sides comes down to utility: the “yes” side believes that all students will benefit from a pass, while the “no” side maintains that this is not the case at all. Public debates are held such that each side may attempt to establish their viewpoint as truth.

 

The first forum was held on March 21 in the SLC Great Hall. However, the debate was somewhat one-sided, as the “no” committee was absent.

 

John Soltys, chair of the “no” committee, said he was unable to attend because of a conflict with a class.

 

The non-representation of the “no” committee didn’t stop the “yes” committee from making their point of view heard. Headed by ES councillor Drew Adams and Planning Students Association president Garett Stevenson, the pair spoke to a small but accumulating crowd.

 

One of the first arguments that Adams made was that the pass would be cheaper than driving. “Maybe you drive to campus. You’ll save $114 off the cost of your parking pass if you [had driven], plus gas and maintenance. You already pay $50 per tank of gas. If you leave your car at home for two weeks — the money you would have spent on the tank of gas, you can spend on the bus pass. And who knows, you might still use it.”

 

However, when Imprint did catch up with Soltys, he disagreed. “The reason people drive is because it’s not feasible to take a bus. It’s because they live far beyond the reaches of the public transit system, and these service improvements won’t benefit the people that drive because they’re so sparse and spread out. These people that drive live in Elmira or Chicopee or the suburbs or some area where bus service is inept at best. And they’re going to derive almost no benefit from this. All of these “improved routes,” they’re only going to be around campus, and they’re going to be screwing the people who live beyond the reach of the transit. And they’re paying for nothing, essentially.”

 

Adams is quick to point out how inexpensive the pass is compared to other deals. After compiling costs of similar bus passes, he found that university students who have a pass pay $83 on average for it, some universities much more. Brock students, for instance, paid $120 for a four month pass in 2003. Emphasizing the low cost, Adams said, “If you take it once a week, one return trip a week for a term, you are going to see the benefit, the pass will pay for itself, and it’ll be a reliable ride that’ll always be there for you.”

 

Said Adams: “Instead of a few cab rides home from the bar, take the bus and save the $50 that way.” But it’s exactly this idea Soltys finds repelling.

 

“It’s not necessary,” he said. “I don’t really feel like paying for your trip to the bar, quite frankly. And I don’t think it’s fair to the people who can derive little or no benefit from it. There are people who get literally absolutely nothing out of this. Taking their money away for a luxury for others is unfair. Because it is a luxury…to get to the bar back and forth.”

 

Adams stated that taking the bus is an environmentially friendly means of transportation which students should be encouraged to use. Fiscal conservatives point out that “walking” is an even more environmentally friendly means of transport. However, Adams pointed out that for the “smog days” in the summer, taking the bus (thus not spending long periods of time outside) can be advantageous.

 

Both the “yes” and “no” sides are guilty when it comes to flawed assumptions or misrepresenting facts. When current Federation of Students vice-president administration and finance Renjie Butalid asked the “yes” committee how students who have no use for the pass could possibly save money, Adams replied that the proposed pass is much cheaper than the current adult pass, which is on order of $200 — completely ignoring the fact that only a small number of students actually buy such passes now. Adams also said that there would be a 15 per cent tax credit for the pass — but that is still net money out of students’ pockets.

 

Moreover, the “no” committee’s posters contain misleading or outright false statements. One poster claims that “When Laurier got a U-Pass, service did not improve,” (emphasis theirs) when in truth improvements were made to Routes 5, 7, 8, 9, 12, and iXpress. Another poster claims that only 15 per cent of students ride the bus, but those statistics are from 2001 — the more recent 2006 study pegs bus ridership at 32 per cent – and at that, the survey reports on the percentage of students to ride the bus to campus, not ridership overall.

 

Yet another poster claims that “The city of Waterloo is willing to give us a cheap, refundable bus pass that will work for everyone. But only if you vote ‘no’ to get a fairer plan.” In reality, any refundable pass would have to be administered by Feds; GRT would see the same lump sum of money whether students have a non-refundable pass or a slightly more expensive refundable pass. Feds would have to accept liability — or even potential financial losses — if large numbers of students requested refunds.

 

Butalid has released a document outlining the potential methods of authenticating students, justifying his decision to use the WatCard readers (the item responsible for the $9.50 fee). Soltys expressed concern at both this investment in infrastructre (possibly locking us into a bus pass in the long term) and the fact that the refundable pass idea hasn’t been fairly presented to students.

 

GRT has already signed a “letter of intent” which is legally binding. Assuming students vote in favour of the pass, GRT has already committed to approximately 27,000 hours of service improvements, including improvements to Route 8, Route 13, and the iXpress.

 

There are two more forums scheduled, both taking place in the SLC Great Hall: one on Friday, March 23 at 11:00 a.m., and the second on Monday, March 26 at noon. Also, there are Facebook groups both for and against the pass for both undergraduate and graduate students (with debate in the “no” undergraduate group in particular) as well as debate happening in the uwaterloo Livejournal community.

 

Hopefully between all these different media, both sides will have presented all the arguments by the time the issue comes to a vote — to be held from 8:00 a.m. on Wednesday, March 28 to 8:00 p.m. on Thursday, March 29.