U-pass
CSUF to Continue U-Pass Program
Submitted by Spokker on 19 August, 2009 - 7:58pm
I got an email today from my school that said CSUF students can get their ID card set up with U-Pass beginning this Friday. They said it will be valid through December 18th, the last day of finals.
It sounds like CSUF scrounged up enough money for the program because they are going to have a huge parking problem this semester due to construction. Anyway, I hope students take what little bus service is being left in Orange County.
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. read more→
UC Irvine U-pass program to end June 2009?
UC Irvine may end their successful U-pass program, which allows UC Irvine students to ride OCTA buses for free. I tried to get my pass renewed at UCItems today, where they normally renew OCTA passes. Their manager said the buzz on the street is that the U-pass program normally costs $60,000, but this coming year may cost UC Irvine about $300,000 "due to abuse" by non-students. UC Irvine's Parking and Transportation website says to "stay tuned," so there's no official word quite yet.
I got a similar vibe that something to the U-pass program would happen. I attended a customer roundtable earlier this year, with OCTA staff saying that since the U-pass is used so much that students may have to bear more costs.
If the U-pass program does end, all UC Irvine student passes would expire at the end of this month, June 2009. Cal State Fullerton passes would expire on August this year.
The U-pass program began in 2003 at Cal State Fullerton and in 2004 at UC Irvine. read more→
