April 22, 2019
This Friday: Transportation Services Town Hall on Parking and UPASS rate increases
There is a Parking and UPASS rate increases public meeting this Friday at noon at HUB room 145
04/26/2019 @ 12:00pm Husky Union Building room 145. The proposed rate changes are posted at the following link: https://transportation.uw.edu/news/parking-and-u-pass-rates
Facebook page on this issue is here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2262781373963808/
On Monday, 4/22/2019, the PSO voted for Parking increases and against UPASS rate increases at the University Transportation Committee meeting.
The motions for increases to both the Parking rate *and* UPASS rate PASSED with dissenting votes from PSO and Union representation. The Rates recommendations now leave the UTC and head to the Regents.
The UPASS position statement entered in the public record follows:
Statement For UW PSO UTC Rates meeting 4/22/2019
The Professional Staff cannot support the employee UPASS rate increase
As you may know, the UPASS program pays for each and every transit trip taken.
As the out of pocket price of the UPASS goes up, the lighter users of the program drop out. We have data that shows how participation has declined as program costs go up.
The employees who then remain in the UPASS program are the heaviest users – and the income of the program is further strained to cover the costs. As employees find other ways to get to campus, including ride-sharing, carpooling, or cycling or come to campus fewer than 5 days per week, as reported in the last transportation survey, the more expensive UPASS makes even less sense – they instead choose Individual Commuter parking Tickets and single use bus tickets. It is a death spiral for the program
For more than a decade we have needed to restructure the employee UPASS program with subsidies and incentives to achieve broad coverage. The Professional Staff have voted for band aids for this outdated financial model in the past but we aren’t going to do it anymore. Out of pocket increases take this program further down the wrong direction.
The Professional Staff vote no on the UPASS rate increase and instead invite a conversation about restructuring the program.
