by Kelly Black and Phil Robinson

For the past two years, students at the University of Ottawa and Carleton University have been guinea pigs in a study they have been asking for since the 1990s: the implementation of a universal, mandatory transit pass (U-Pass). U-Pass programs are intended to offer affordable transit to students while providing the city with environmental and economic benefits.

Since its inception, the U-Pass has decreased congestion across the city as students have flocked to public transit. According to OC Transpo, this has resulted in thousands of cars being taken off the road each and every day. The public benefits of creating a “transit generation” are why over 30 U-Pass programs have been implemented across Canada. But at the current $145 per semester rate, Ottawa’s U-Pass is the most expensive in the country. Costs of other programs range from $125 a semester in Edmonton to $40 a semester at the University of the Fraser Valley.

In anticipation of a new round of negotiations over the price of the U-Pass, student union representatives at both Carleton and U at Ottawa prepared a detailed analysis of the program to date. This cost-benefit analysis presents an inclusive view of both the revenue and savings that are generated by the program.

Despite this analysis, City Council voted to increase the price of the U-Pass by 24%. City Council also voted to cancel semester and annual student passes for postsecondary students at Algonquin, La Cité collégiale, and St. Paul’s University. By cancelling alternatives to the U-Pass, it seems the city is strong-arming students at every university and college into adopting the program at an increased cost. These decisions came on the heels of a $22 million transit cut – or “route optimization” – that has left riders reeling.

While the actions of the Transit Commission, City Council and the mayor are clearly not what students had hoped for, no one can say the experience has not been educational.

The experience has yielded several important lessons. No longer are meetings with city councillors a phone call away. Under the new regime, councillors avoid meetings while deferring to the mayor or bodies like the Transit Commission. City councillors seem to be mere bystanders charged with repeating the talking points passed down to them.

Lesson 1: Municipal decision making is becoming increasingly centralized in Ottawa.

OC Transpo and elected officials do not always talk to one another. Students were promised consultations regarding the calculation of “revenue neutrality.” These consultations have not only proven to be a bluff, but staff did not even bother to tell city councillors of these commitments.

As a result, misinformed city leaders took the path of least resistance by assuming students didn’t know what they were talking about. In the end, students were chastised and no official assumed any responsibility.

Lesson 2: It is important to keep a paper trail and get everything in writing, but don’’t assume this provides any guarantees.

In other instances, OC Transpo management misled elected officials, telling the Transit Commission that the effect of cancelling semester and annual passes was negligible for students at Algonquin College because most are part-time students. In fact, approximately 18,000 full-time students attending Algonquin are eligible for these student passes.

To use another example, students provided every member of the Transit Commission with meeting minutes that clearly indicate it was OC Transpo that did not have its act together in time, but Mayor Jim Watson has frequently referred to the students’ unions’ “failure” to hold referenda on a new price early in 2011.

Lesson 3: Don’t assume elected officials are or want to be accurately briefed.

Students discovered that the city lacks either the ability or interest to question the work of its consultants. Even when consultants make obvious and significant errors – such as claiming 98% of Carleton students used public transit – the word of the consultant is held as unquestionably true. This provides an easy excuse for elected officials who might otherwise feel compelled to pay attention to details.

Lesson 4: The avoidance of detail or holistic thinking is widespread.

Some officials seem to relish the opportunity to point out that a “revenue neutral” approach to the U-Pass should only consider revenue and not cost savings like decreased road maintenance and the elimination of commissions paid to third party vendors. Quality-of-life and environmental benefits from decreased congestion were also given no value.

Lesson 5: The city will not get its hands dirty with budgeting that incorporates costs and benefits in financial, social, and environmental terms.

City councillors, the mayor and OC Transpo repeatedly pitted students against  taxpayers and property owners. Students were never placed in opposition to other taxpayers. During presentations at the Nov. 2011 Transit Commission meeting, Councillor Steve Desroches asked,“Why do you think you have the privilege to argue on what we deem is the price?” While students wondered whether Desroches spoke to other “taxpayers” with such hostility, the Ottawa Citizen’s David Reevely tweeted “The students are getting a really, really rough ride from the commissioners. Downright hostile. Holding their own, for sure.”

As property renters, students pay the highest property taxes in Ottawa. Yet rather than promoting the financial, environmental and quality-of-life benefits the U-Pass brings to all residents of the city, “students” and “taxpayers” were set against each other.

Lesson 6: Students are not equal in the eyes of the city.

Perhaps the ultimate lesson for the over 110,000 students in Ottawa is that good intentions and good research guarantee neither fair play nor a positive outcome. Valiant efforts at speaking truth to power are commendable but not always enough in and of themselves: once all students are paying a mandatory fee, an opportunistic city will try to increase that fee and cut service to milk students for everything they can.  This lesson is reinforced by the city’s decision to cancel the alternatives – namely the annual and semester student bus passes – in an effort to push students across the city to adopt the mandatory $180 U-Pass. Students need to understand that if we aren’t going to stand up for ourselves, no one else will.

It is entirely possible that the whole U-Pass experiment will fail in required student referenda. After pushing students into a corner, the city needs to drastically improve service levels and expand the ability to opt-out of the mandatory program, especially for rural students. If the project fails and ridership plummets, it will be to the detriment of all taxpayers, be they students or otherwise.