With the fall quarter about to begin and gas prices at all-time
highs, Transportation Services is offering a pilot program with the
city’s Metro bus line in an effort to promote the use of
alternative modes of transportation.
Go Metro, like UCLA’s BruinGo! program for the Santa
Monica Big Blue Bus, is a subsidized program which allows students,
staff and faculty to ride local buses at a discount.
UCLA will subsidize half the cost of every pass, marking the
first time UCLA is offering subsidized Metro transit fare, Corbett
said.
Student monthly Metro passes would average $91 each, will now be
sold for $45.50. UCLA employees can purchase a pass for $78 rather
than $156 because employees do not qualify for the student discount
Metro offers.
Once purchased at the Central Ticket Office or through the
Transportation Services Web site, the pass can be used to ride all
Metro bus and rail lines an unlimited amount of times until the
quarter ends.
Sam Corbett, the manager of planning and analysis for UCLA
Transportation Services, said the Go Metro program helps to meet
the needs of some students which BruinGo! cannot.
“We’ve always known that our BruinGo! program
didn’t serve the entire UCLA community all that well. It
serves the south and west pretty well, but not the east and north,
and that was a recognized deficiency,” Corbett said.
Go Metro will be a two-year pilot program available during the
fall, winter and spring quarters. The university will use it on a
trial basis to see if it is successful and is able to sufficiently
meet the needs of the UCLA community, Corbett said.
“The whole purpose of Go Metro is to attract new people to
public transportation. We are hoping if the program is successful,
then Metro will consider us a more important destination and will
increase the level of service to UCLA,” Corbett said.
“It’s unlikely and unrealistic to expect Metro to
expand their rail network to West L.A. within the next few years,
but it is expected to increase bus service,” Corbett
said.
Unlike Big Blue Bus and Culver CityBus which service the area to
the south and west of UCLA, Metro services the Los Angeles
metropolitan area with 200 bus routes and four rail lines.
BruinGo! is a subsidized transit fare that allows current UCLA
students, staff and faculty to ride the Big Blue Bus and Culver
CityBus for 25 cents after swiping their BruinCard. The BruinGo!
program has been around for five years, Corbett said.
Corbett said the largest difference between the BruinGo! program
and the Go Metro program is students and employees have to
determine in advance whether or not they will ride the Metro enough
to justify the expense of purchasing a pass for the quarter whereas
with BruinGo!, students pay for each individual ride.
David Sutton, the director of Metro commute services, said it is
possible service to the West Side may increase if the Go Metro
program is successful.
“Whenever there’s a demand for service, we try to
add equipment where it’s necessary and look for new routes to
better meet those demands,” Sutton said.
Sutton said Metro is a “dynamic system” that would
have to account for various factors, including how many students
are on each bus to determine what changes, if any, are to be made
to meet the demand of riders.
Sutton also said a similar program to Go Metro called IPASS has
been available for L.A. city colleges for the past year.
That 100-percent subsidized program has increased student
ridership by seven percent and Sutton believes Go Metro will do the
same for UCLA.
Jane Gould, transportation planner for UCLA Transportation
Services, said it is difficult to trace the exact number of student
and employee riders because of the various locations from which
passes can be purchased.
“We do believe more students will take advantage of (the
Metro) and we expect the number of students and employees riding
the Metro to increase,” Gould said.
As of Sept. 14, about 40 student passes and 60 employee passes
had been sold, Corbett said.
“We optimistically hope for 1500 sales by spring
quarter,” Corbett said. “This is the sort of program
that may take some time for people to take advantage of
it.”
Corbett said according to a survey done last spring by
Transportation Services, there are approximately 1000 daily
passengers from UCLA who ride the Metro.
In addition to the launch of Go Metro, UCLA will start
subsidizing weekend fare for Big Blue Bus and Culver CityBus.