Quote:
Originally Posted by jsbertram
The U-Pass program isn't only to get students to/from school using transit, but to make it part of their lifestyle for most of their traveling needs, so after 2, 3 or 4 years of use they won't think of it as a hardship or an inconvenience when they have to pay the full-cost of their monthly fare cards as part of the commute to their new jobs. If they are lucky, their new employer will be part of the employee bus pass program that makes their monthly pass cheaper - just not as cheap as the U-Pass.
Some of these new grads will be using transit for a few years after graduating, some for a decade or more, so for each of them using transit after graduating, that is one car NOT on the road. And thats a good thing.
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I don't see the UPass as being a form of indoctrination. I know studies have shown that more students after graduation keep taking transit now than before, but that can also be because transit is 10 times better in the region than it was before the Canada Line and Millennium line.
4 years of using a Upass isn't going to keep people riding transit if after graduating Transit doesn't serve them. Living in a low rent apartment in Marpole or Metrotown and taking transit to UBC is one thing, getting a job someplace like the East side of North Vancouver or South Burnaby in Fraserview and only being able to afford to buy a townhouse in Cloverdale is another. No amount of upass Brainwashing is going to convince people to keep taking transit in those kind of situations if they can afford to avoid it.
I'm not arguing against the Upass, I think the Upass is great. I wish I had a Upass when I went to BCIT. But it's priced at it's current level so that Translink loses only around $1 million dollars on it. I think that's a fair trade to help out students who need it. But UBC is currently at 30% mode share on Transit and the system basically breaks even.
If Skytrain were to increase that to a downtown like 50%, the cost of the UPass would have to go up to cover the new expenses. Now if you were to only price the cost of the Upass against operating expenses (and not capital expenditures) then any form of LRT or Skytrain would probably be a money saver over the Bline. How much for each one is to be determined and could be the deciding factor in the grand scheme of things. If it actually costs less per student to get them to UBC from Arbutus on Skytrain, then Skytrain is the most logical choice. If LRT for that distance has a better return on price/trip, the LRT might be the way to go.
But if the cost of the UPass were to increase it might become more of a burden to some students. Still cheaper than a monthly pass, but more expensive than it was before. Some students will brush it off and be glad for the time savings, but then again some students drive BMW's while others go into so much debt they can't pay it off for 20 years.
So that's what I was getting at. I think most of us can agree that extending Skytrain from VCC to at least Arbutus is not only logical but necessary to improve transit and growth in the Key central Broadway area.
However, from Arbutus to UBC is slightly more than half the distance of the entire line. Is it worth it to spend roughly half the $2.8 billion estimated cost, or about $1.4billion on the Skytrain from Arbutus to UBC? Would it affect ridership on that portion that much to justify an extra billion over what Streetcar or LRT would cost? Can that section see growth on the same scale as VCC-Arbutus?
IF LRT from Arbutus to UBC can attract almost as many riders as Skytrain on that leg, what's the point of spending the extra B note to get the same results?
(DISCLAIMER: I'm just playing devils advocate here, these are real, valid counter points to Skytrain all the way to UBC. I'm trying to present some better arguments than the conspiracy/lobby/nazi arguments from some (cough) that people are going to have to deal with)
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