UC Irvine OCTA bus pass = $95/year
UC Irvine's free U-pass program has ended as I feared, but thankfully, they're still enabling students to get a pretty good discount for riding OCTA. The U-pass, which lets UC Irvine students ride almost any OCTA bus for free, now costs $95 a year and the cards expire on June 30, 2010.
Unfortunately, students have to get their passes at the Parking and Transportation office, instead of UCItems. And oddly enough, UC Irvine now issues individual bus pass cards instead of encoding the bus pass on photo-personalized student ID cards, creating a huge opportunity for cards like this to be sold on Craigslist or the Anteaterforums. (At UC Berkeley, there was a black market for the AC Transit Class Pass stickers for unlimited bus rides.)
No word yet on what Cal State University at Fullerton's U-pass situation will be this year.
Comments
If their concern was really
If their concern was really fraud, then these are going to be a hell of a lot easier to share. At least when you use your school ID, you need to hold on to the ID to check out books or print something, at least at my school. Now you can just swap passes with a friend. And where did the money for these NEW cards come from?
And finally, after the next round of service cuts, will there be any buses going to UCI anymore?
Riders with reduced fare
Riders with reduced fare (disabled) passes are required to show ID with the pass. Why not do the same with the student passes?
I can say that at
I can say that at $68/semester for our UC Berkeley Class Pass, we got a much better value with dozens of bus routes around campus. I miss the 51 already...
The last I heard, the hold up with Cal integrating the Class Pass into the student ID is because there is already another chip inside which is used by some buildings to gain entrance. I've always thought they should just make the perimeter of campus a fare free zone and allow people to use all doors to get on and off. They're 90% students anyway.
$95 is a tremendous price
$95 is a tremendous price hike for a U-pass considering it has been FREE the past several years. I only used my U-pass 2 times per week, to get go to and from UCI and other times I get rides. So considering I hardly ever use my pass, I'm practically better off just paying the $1.50 each time. $95 is a rip off..I am very disappointed.