BruinGo! co-pay to stay

BruinGo!, the program allowing anyone with a BruinCard to swipe
it and ride the Santa Monica Big Blue Bus for a reduced fare, is
here to stay, and so are the changes introduced in fall 2003.

This year, UCLA Transportation Services modified the BruinGo!
program to include a co-payment of $.25 for students, and
introduced a pre-pay card which students can swipe in lieu of the
co-payment.

Transportation Services also excluded weekends and school
holidays from the program and added the Culver City Bus lines.
Previously, only the Big Blue Bus participated in BruinGo!. Student
reaction to the changes has been mixed.

Paula McKenzie, a second-year African American studies graduate
student, said she preferred the flexibility of last year’s
program.

“If this is their new system, I’ll deal with
it,” she said. “But I liked last year’s system
better, because I use it on weekends and I didn’t have to
purchase a FlashPass.”

Other students expressed similar sentiments.

But Transportation Services found the changes introduced this
year had no significant effect on the number of people who travel
on the buses, said Joseph Vardner, the undergraduate student
representative to the Transportation Services Advisory Board.

Though the number of swipes went down during the first half of
the 2003-2004 school year compared to the same period in 2002-2003,
the number of different people using the program increased, said
Renee Fortier, director of Transportation Services.

Fortier attributed the decrease in swipes this year to the
restriction of the program to school days only. Last year BruinGo!
applied to holidays and weekends as well. Fortier credits the
introduction of the co-payment, which gives students an incentive
to obtain transfers, as another reason the number of swipes has
decreased.

Last year, when students rode for free, they had no reason to
ask for the transfers because they could just swipe their
BruinCards when they boarded a second bus, Fortier said. Now they
are charged $.25 every time they board without a transfer pass.

BruinGo! began as a pilot program in 2000 but had an uncertain
future until last spring, when it was incorporated into
Transportation Services’ ongoing programs, Fortier said.

Though the program will be evaluated periodically, this
year’s changes will probably be permanent, Fortier added.

The program is funded through revenue from parking permits and
tickets, prompting some to criticize BruinGo! as unfair to those
who drive to school.

Jeffrey Kraft, a mathematics and operations graduate student,
noted he was not against the idea to subsidize people who take the
bus to school, but questioned its source of funding.

“Parking is (already) pretty astronomical for a public
school,” Kraft said. “It’s not fair that students
should have to pay for other students.”

Transportation Services pays on a per swipe basis, as opposed to
a flat fee. The reduction in the number of swipes has lowered the
program’s cost.

For example, last year the program cost about $1.3 million,
compared to this year, where the cost is projected to be $800,000,
Fortier said.

BruinGo! is one of several Transportation Services programs
aimed at developing alternatives to people having to drive to
school alone.

In 1990, the City of Los Angeles entered a range development
plan with UCLA in which the university’s growth is contingent
upon its ability to regulate traffic.

The city imposed a cap of about 139,000 daily vehicle trips to
and from campus in this agreement. The agreement is effective until
2005. Most commuters add two trips to this total every day: one
trip coming to campus and another trip leaving.

Currently, the total number of vehicle trips is about 10,000
short of the cap. If UCLA hits the trip limit, the city of Los
Angeles might pull UCLA’s construction permits and try to
hinder campus growth in other ways, Fortier said.

About 10,000 students, faculty and staff utilize BruinGo! every
year.

If everyone currently using BruinGo! drove to school instead,
UCLA would probably hit the 139,000 limit.

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