By Rachel Braeuer
Photos by Mark Burnham
Of course students want a cheap U-Pass. Of course students want more buses. Of course students want buses to run at more convenient times and until the wee hours of the morning.
Most of us are struggling financially, and we’ve all felt the “will I get off this winter hell mound?” fear. But let’s get real: TransLink isn’t going to invest more resources into an area that, because of the U-Pass, they continually receive a flat rate from.
Right now university students pay $36 per month for their U-Pass, which is $16 less than a highschool student pays for a monthly concession pass that will likely not take them out of the zone they and their school reside in. Given SFU’s large commuter basis and satellite campuses, it’s likely we will be using our extremely discounted pass to travel in all zones, or at least two.
Assuming Translink’s pricing for its regular adult monthly passes doesn’t leave a huge profit margin, for every U-Pass being made use of, they’re losing out on a potential $88–$134 per student. Multiply that by the 25,000 students currently enrolled at SFU and that’s a lot of money.
A lot has been said about the Gondola project, much of it negative. Some are concerned about the impact it will have on the protected environmental area it will run through (although, if you’ve looked out the window while riding the 145 lately, you’ll notice clear-cut patches striping the sides of the mountain, so perhaps this work is already under way).
Residents of the Forest Grove area it will run over are concerned with having a gondola flying over their houses every 20 seconds during peak hours. But TransLink has said “there is not approved funding at this time for the Burnaby Gondola Project.” Right now the Gondola is probably third in line behind both the Evergreen line and the proposed subway on the Broadway corridor.
These projects will likely be heavily subsidized by fees levied at car owners, which seems fair. Both routes are heavily congested even in off-peak hours.
Freeing up lanes makes sense for drivers, but when’s the last time you saw stop-and-go traffic coming up Burnaby Mountain Parkway? Drivers won’t want to fund this project because it doesn’t affect their commute.
If we’re serious about improving transit to Burnaby campus, it’s time we start rethinking the implicit value in our discounted passes. It wouldn’t be heinous to siphon some funds from UniverCity’s residents considering the added property value the Gondola would create for them, but ultimately it’s the students who will benefit the most from it. More than a costly outdoor stadium, I’d wager.
We’ve had a sweet cheap ride these last 10 years with the Universal Pass, but maybe it’s time we started paying our own dues. Increasing U-Pass costs to the equivalent of a concession pass is still more than affordable, and if that helps free up some extra cash for TransLink to throw a few more buses our way in the meantime or a Gondola along the way, all the better.
Better yet, we could look into alternative forms of fundraising for the project. But it’s pointless to lobby TransLink for more services and resources when we continue to pay less for more.
