Undergraduate students will face their second referendum vote this year on March 11-13, this time deciding whether to continue the London Transit Commission (LTC) bus pass.
As part student fees, students pay for an eight-month unlimited bus pass for use between September and April. The fee is mandatory for all full-time undergraduate students.
The cost of the 2008-09 bus pass is $125.78; however the University Students’ Council (USC) is proposing an eight-per-cent increase, bringing the total charge to $135.84 to cover cost-of-living increases in transportation, added regularly scheduled service hours and annual change in transit operating funding.
To cover administrative costs of the program, $1 has also been added to the fee. The bus pass program is revenue neutral for the USC and profit neutral for the LTC.
The USC negotiated the bus pass contract with the LTC, which resulted in the $10.06 price increase. USC president Stephen Lecce says the contract “meets the needs of students and is fair moving forward.”
“This is an important referendum. We have a lot at stake, both in the quality of the experience of students and getting students to and from their homes, some of which live not necessarily near campus,” he says.
Students will be asked to vote whether they are in favour of continuing the eight-month bus pass for full-time undergraduate students at the negotiated cost of $135.84 for the 2009-10 academic year, which will be increased annually by five per cent, plus an added $1 administration fee for the program.
“We are excited for the opportunity to go to students with this question,” says Lecce. “Voting no effectively means voting against the bus pass and not having the bus pass in September 2009.
The 2009 London post-secondary monthly bus pass is $560 or $70 per month for eight months. Western students pay among the lowest tuition-based bus pass fees in the province, he says.
Lecce says thousands of Western students use the bus pass, adding even those who use public transit on an irregular basis get great value for their dollar.
“Students get a fair deal. We’ve advocated to ensure the contract and the details moving forward are student-focused and any increase is tied to service increases,” he says.
With cost said to have played a role the University Community Centre renovations referendum decision in February, Lecce says the USC knows finances might influence the vote results.
“We have a contract that works for students and we have a contract that limits increases every single year for the next five years,” he says.
The online voting period has been expanded over three days to accommodate the non-traditional timing during the academic year for a referendum vote.
Students have been issued USC-LTC tuition-based bus passes since September 1998.
For more information about the referendum, visit www.westernbuspass.ca.