Starting next semester, Austin Community College will provide its students, faculty and staff with free Capitol Metro passes as part of the “Green Pass” pilot program approved by the ACC Board of Trustees, pending a vote by the Capitol Metro Board of Directors.
Trustees passed the initiative at the group’s meeting Monday night to help students get to class, ease parking congestion and reduce the college’s carbon footprint. Capitol Metro’s Board of Directors will vote on the program at their board meeting Oct. 28.
“The idea for the plans have been out there for a while,” said Capitol Metro spokeswoman Misty Whited. “Every time an ACC, Concordia or St. Edward’s student asked us for a bus pass program similar to UT’s, we’ve told them to go to their administration.”
ACC and Capitol Metro were able to work out a deal in which the college will buy a lump sum of passes at a discount rate and hand those passes out for free, Whited said.
“ACC has been wanting to do this for a long time, but it usually comes down to money,” she said.
A fund of $250,000 has been set aside for the initial cost of the program. The college will be charged a discount fare of 40 cents per ride instead of the usual 75 cents per one-way trip.
The fund comes from revenue gained by the college’s parking fee increase from $10 to $15 that went into effect this fall. Each student also pays a $1 sustainability fee per semester hour, said Ben Ferrel, ACC’s executive vice president for finance and administration.
“The program is good in many ways, and it ultimately brings more people to riding our system,” Whited said. “We’ve found that people get accustomed to transit, and many graduates leave UT and continue to ride the bus.”
Each ACC student, staff or faculty member that wants a pass will be provided with a fare card that will monitor how many passes are being used and how often a cardholder is riding.
The program is also in accordance with ACC’s “green” initiative, known as policy number C-9.
“Our C-9 policy basically says that ACC is going to do anything it can to promote sustainable practices,” Ferrel said. “We felt that part of this included developing alternative modes of transportation for our students.”
About 5,000 to 6,000 of ACC’s 40,000 students ride the bus. If the pilot program proves successful, the board will revisit the structure of the program, Ferrel said.
“We’ve been looking at the way UT works with Capitol Metro, and the possibility of using a student ID card to swipe for bus fares,” he said. “We’re a different college though, and this pilot program seemed the best way to go for us.”
There’s also been a lot of communication between the trustees and students, Ferrel said.
“We’ve been working with Student Government for the last several months,” he said. “If we do something that affects a lot of students, we like to talk to them about it. We don’t care about doing something if it’s not going to help the students.”
A fraternity was responsible for creating UT’s first shuttle system in 1957, and charged a $6 monthly fee to get students from West Campus to the main campus. In 1989, Capitol Metro contracted with UT to provide the service students use today, said Blanca Juarez, alternative transportation manager at UT.
UT shuttle ridership is roughly 600,000 rides a year, which is the largest collegiate ridership in the nation, Juarez said. The mainline of Capitol Metro sees 40,000 UT riders per month.
“Students do pay for the service, though a lot of students may not realize it,” Juarez said. “The fee is roughly $53 and is part of the registration fee you pay when you register for classes.”
ACC student James Jacobs is studying computer science and takes his car, walks or rides his bike to school, though his sister Alexa rides the bus twice a week to the Northridge Campus, 18 miles from their house.
“It can be difficult to find parking at campuses, so it might help that situation,” James Jacobs said. “I’m sure it’ll help with people’s finances and gas, too.”
