College and university students should be treated equally on transit

The more you think about it, the more unfair it seems that students at our two universities receive deeply discounted bus passes, while Conestoga College students are denied the same sweet deal.

University students receive a universal pass for the low price of $81per four-month term. Every student pays that price. Many of those students ride the buses. During the school year, they make up a substantial portion of passengers on that King Street/University Avenue route that will become, essentially, the same route taken by light rail transit.

In fall 2011, Conestoga College students voted for the same kind of arrangement. But Waterloo Region balked at the expense of giving those students the same deal, says Conestoga Students Inc. president Jeff Scherer. They pay $218 for a four-month term.

Yet the Conestoga students probably deserve that discounted pass even more than the university students do. Here’s why:

If we’re giving out transit subsidies in order to help tomorrow’s residents get accustomed to using public transit, which I think we are, Conestoga students are a better investment. That’s because more of them stay here after graduation. John Tibbits, president of the college, says 70 to 75 per cent of Conestoga alumni remain in Waterloo Region. Only 23.5 per cent of Wilfrid Laurier University graduates do. (University of Waterloo representatives say reliable figures are not available for where their alumni live.)

The two universities in Waterloo long ago stopped filling themselves with local students. Many of their programs draw students from all over the province, the country and internationally, too. But about two-thirds of Conestoga’s students live in Waterloo Region. Why not extend the transit subsidy to the people who are actually living and paying taxes right here? It’s a good question.

This is also a “fairness issue,” Tibbits says. He notes that most university students come from families at the higher end of the socio-economic spectrum. By contrast, Conestoga students have a much wider range of backgrounds.

Some are immigrants who just arrived here and need to learn English. Others are students with university degrees who are enrolled in postgraduate programs. Still others are at Conestoga because they can’t afford to leave town for post-secondary education. More than half of Conestoga’s students work more than 20 hours a week at part-time jobs. For those from lower-income households, getting to the Conestoga campus is an accessibility issue.

Everyone involved agrees that if Conestoga students are going to get decent transit subsidies, then there will have to be a lot more money spent on more buses, more drivers and more routes. More have been added recently, but much more needs to happen. Even if only the full-time students were granted subsidized bus passes, that’s 11,000 more people.

As it stands now, there have been complaints that the buses to the college are sometimes so crowded they leave passengers behind who then miss class. I’m sure those complaints are grounded in fact.

When I got onto the Route 10 bus early Wednesday afternoon for the half-hour trip to Fairview Park mall, it was standing room only, even as it rolled off the campus.