These arguments were produced for President Richmond to use in his meeting with Chancellor Reed to seek support for Jack Pass.

Description:

• A mandatory fee of approximately $15 will fund a universal bus pass for HSU students.
• Staff and Faculty will be able to buy a pass for approximately $80 per semester.
• Funding from parking fines and forfeitures will continue to fund alternative transportation programs including this new program.
• The pass will enable all students to ride free on Redwood Transit Service (RTS) buses, which serve between most cities in Northern Humboldt County, and Eureka Transit Service (ETS), which serves the City of Eureka.
• Free access or discounts on smaller transit services such as Blue Lake Rancheria Transit and the Willow Creek bus may be added to the program in the future if the budget allows.
• Students will continue to ride for free on the local buses, which serve Arcata.

Justification:

Economics

• The current system restricts university access for economically disadvantaged students: 
  • Rents in Arcata have nearly doubled in the last 8 years.¹
  • Parking permit prices are in the process of more than doubling from $67.50 per semester in 2004 to $157.50 per semester in 2008.
  • The cost of automobile ownership starts at around $5,000 per year.²
  • Gas prices doubled in the last three years.³
  • Transportation cost for car-less students living outside Arcata (where housing costs are substantially lower) is $100 per semester, even with existing subsidies.⁴
• The new program will save the most economically disadvantaged students (those that cannot afford a car or Arcata's high rents) $85 per semester.
• Students who otherwise would have owned a car could save $5000 or more per year.

Student Recruitment

• Because Humboldt State University is the most remote campus in the CSU system, it relies on attracting students with some of its unique characteristics. This program will contribute to HSU's reputation for a high level of environmental and social consciousness, because it will reduce automobile use, one of the biggest impacts we inflict on the environment:
  • Transportation is responsible for 45% of greenhouse gas emissions in Arcata.⁵
  • The space-intensive car-centric transportation system in the United States leaves an area nearly the size of Ohio coated with impermeable surfaces, causing habitat destruction, loss of productive farmland, flooding and polluted run-off.⁶
  • Car accidents kill 42,000 Americans each year⁷, while public transportation has been shown to be at least 10 times safer per passenger mile.⁸
• Making it easy to attend HSU without a car will make it more attractive for students who cannot afford or prefer not to purchase one.⁹ This includes students who find housing outside Arcata and need access to HSU. It also includes students living in Arcata wanting mobility to jobs and activities elsewhere, as well as mobility to HSU facilities in Eureka and Trinidad.

Campus Land Use and Parking Costs

• HSU has no space to add substantial surface lot parking capacity.
• Multilevel parking structures cost 300% more per space to construct than surface lots.¹⁰
• This program will limit parking demand growth as HSU grows, reducing the need for expensive multilevel parking and therefore helping to control parking costs.

Support from the HSU Community and the Wider Community

The Jack Pass concept is supported by:

• Parking and Transportation Safety Committee
• Associated Students Council
• President Richmond
• The Arcata City Council (passed a proclamation of support)

Bus Schedule Issues

• RTS currently has a schedule that emphasizes service to Eureka. Buses often arrive at HSU just after the hour in the morning, and depart just before the hour in the afternoon.
• The Jack Pass will increase ridership on RTS which will in turn give HSU riders leverage to improve the schedule for HSU, whether by changing the timing of buses, or by increasing the number of buses and / or routes running.

Case Studies & Example programs:

University of Washington

• The University of Washington grew by 19% between 1989 and 2001.
• Even with that growth, UW’s parking capacity and parking demand have remained constant.
• This is due mostly to a U-Pass program which provides a variety of services including a universal transit pass, emergency rides home, carpool incentives and services for bicycle commuters.

San Jose State University¹¹

• Transportation Solutions, an A.S. program at SJSU has been very successful:
• The program involves a student fee of $21.50 (employees can buy a pass for $25).
• Pass holders have unlimited access to Santa Clara Valley Transit Authority (VTA) buses and light rail.
• They have limited free access to Sam Trans and AC Transit buses.
• Over ten years they have increased transit use to 2.5 times what it was.
• The program is popular with transit users and drivers (still 50% of students) because of its effectiveness as a transportation demand management (TDM) tool. Students so far have always approved fee increases when they have voted on them.

Other campuses

• Similar programs exist at Sacramento State University¹² (another CSU campus), as well as many public and private universities throughout the United States¹³.

References:

¹Eshker, E. and S. Mesner Zidel. 2004. Is There a Housing Bubble in Humboldt County?

The Housing Market in a Rural California Region, 1989-2004 (http://www.humboldt.edu/~indexhum/projects/housing_summary.pdf)

²American Automobile Association. 2005. Your Driving Costs. (http://www.aaanewsroom.net/Assets/Files/20062151133460.Driving_Costs_2005.pdf)

³(http://www.answers.com/topic/gas-prices-medium-term-png)

⁴Based on the purchase of four monthly RTS passes at the HSU book store for $25 each. (http://studentaffairs.humboldt.edu/parking/bus_info.php)

⁵City of Arcata. 2000. Community Greenhouse Gas Inventory and Forecast. (http://www.arcatacityhall.org/energy/ghg_app_a.pdf)

⁶Elvidge, C. D., C. Milesi, J. B. Dietz, B. T. Tuttle, P. C. Sutton, R. Nemani and J. E. Vogelmann. 2004. U.S. Constructed Area Approaches the Size of Ohio. Eos 85:233-240. (http://www.atmos.millersville.edu/~jscala/ESCI107-109/usconstrsfc.pdf)

⁷National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. 2006. Traffic Safety Facts: 2005 Data.

(http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/pdf/nrd-30/NCSA/TSF2005/OverviewTSF05.pdf)

⁸Todd Litman. 2005. Terrorism, Transit and Public Safety. Journal of Public Transit 8:33-46. (http://www.vtpi.org/transitrisk.pdf)

⁹At the University of Wisconsin, 15 percent of students surveyed indicated that the U-PASS program had a major impact on their decision to attend the university (Meyer and Beimborn 1996)? (from Transportation and Sustainable Campus Communities).

¹⁰The first parking structure in HSU's masterplan will be below grade which could raise costs per space by 900% over surface parking costs. See: Parking, Chapter 5.4 in Victoria Transportation Policy Institute?s Transportation Cost and Benefit Analysis. 2005. (http://www.vtpi.org/tca/tca0504.pdf)

¹¹The San Jose State University A.S. program ?Transportation Solutions? offers students the A.S. Ecopass for two regional bus systems. Program is funded by $21/semester mandatory fee. (http://as.sjsu.edu/asts/index.jsp?val=eco_overview)

¹²Sacramento State University students pay a $7 per semester fee to enjoy unlimited rides on local trains and buses. (http://www.csus.edu/utaps/commute_choices.htm)

¹³A small sample of examples of universal bus pass programs outside the CSU system:

University of Washington, U-PASS: (http://www.washington.edu/commuterservices/programs/upass/index.php)

University of Colorado, Eco Pass: (http://ucbparking.colorado.edu/AlternativeTransportation)

UC Irvine, OCTA: (http://www.parking.uci.edu/AT/modes/OCTA.cfm)

Cal Poly SLO: (http://www.afd.calpoly.edu/Police/index_commuter.htm)

University of Denver, College Transit Pass / Eco Pass: (http://www.du.edu/transcenter/)