Conestoga students voting on universal transit pass

It’s the third attempt to bring in mandatory Grand River pass

KITCHENER — The more votes, the better.

So Conestoga College’s students union has extended an online vote that asks about 15,000 students on the college’s Waterloo Region campuses to say “yes” or “no” to a mandatory universal bus pass for September 2019.

Rather than end Friday, voting continues until Monday at 11:59 p.m.

“We are neutral in this,” Aimee Calma, president of Conestoga Students Inc., said on Wednesday. “We don’t want a yes or a no. Our measure of success is voter turnout.”

A 10 per cent turnout is required in the online referendum that opened on Monday.

Conestoga students now pay $292 if they want a four-month Grand River Transit pass. If a universal pass is approved by a majority of voting students, that same one-semester pass will dip to $137, billed with tuition.

However, it will become mandatory, the key to getting a lower rate.

Full-time Conestoga students within the region — who pay compulsory student union fees and attend the Doon, Waterloo, Cambridge and Schlegel-University Gates campuses — would pay $274 for a U-pass over two semesters. They would get a full year’s worth of unlimited transit service, bus and light rail starting in the fall of 2019.

That’s if the vote is yes and the next regional council follows up by approving a Conestoga U-pass setup at budget time. Those two political hoops have been problematic in the past.

“This is our third go-round,” John Cicuttin, the region’s manager of transit development, said. “So, this is kind of an evolving story.”

Seven years ago, Conestoga students voted yes to the U-pass. However, the mandate died at the regional table. Two years ago, Conestoga students rejected a U-pass proposal with a no vote of 57.3 per cent.

The student board of directors of Conestoga Students Inc. thought this was a good time to revisit the possibility. So, the student reps reached out to Grand River Transit to begin a year-long process.

The conditions may finally be right for a U-pass to win approval from students and politicians. Conestoga’s enrolment has jumped to 16,500 students across all campuses, up from 13,000 a year ago.

And Grand River Transit says ridership to Conestoga, which has more than 14,000 students at its Doon and Cambridge campuses, has grown 65 per cent over the past two years to about 3,300 daily riders. In response, service to the Doon campus has been boosted by nearly 40 per cent or 125 extra trips every day.

“We’re in an upward spiral for ridership,” Cicuttin said.

“So, we thought the U-pass would be beneficial to all parties.”

Traffic has become busy enough that Grand River Transit is planning a $4-million passenger facility in Parking Lot 6 at Doon. The college is providing the space and the region is picking up the tab. No matter how the U-pass vote goes, the project aims to be built by next September, Cicuttin said.

When Ion light-rail services begin, the 201 iXpress bus will be extended from the Blockline station to Conestoga, adding 125 trips.

Laurier and Waterloo university students already pay a mandatory U-pass fee of $93.91 per semester. The fee will jump to $98.60 next September, $38.40 cheaper than the college’s proposed rate.