An additional $15 registration fee might have assisted students who rely on public transportation, but last year the proposal was revoked by the SGA.
“Half the reason why I don’t come to school is because I don’t have the money to catch the bus and get here,” said Bakersfield College student Deaquanita C. Martin.
Martin is commenting about a proposal that Golden Empire Transit had brought forth to the BC Student Government Association last year about making a semester long bus pass usable via student’s Gade Card.
“We were proposing an unlimited access student pass at a one time $15 a semester transit fee for use of the GET,” said GET Customer Support Supervisor Jill Smith. “For that fee the student would use their student ID card and show the driver to get unlimited access.”
The $15 would be added into the registration fees at the beginning of the semester and be a mandatory fee for all students to pay.
A regular month pass for the bus is $30 a month and over a four-month time span, that equates to $120.
GET contacted BC Marketing Director Amber Chiang and tried to make this work. Smith said that she, along with Chiang and a BC student made a trip about six months in advance to a conference in Michigan where the idea of the once-a-semester fee was born.
“Right after I started [at BC] we went to a conference in Michigan,” said Chiang. “They told me about a program they were developing.”
The conference dealt with universities that have a fee included in their registration and students can ride where they want. The other universities are much larger, but they figured that something like that might be able to work here at BC.
“We worked on it about five or six months before taking it to then SGA President Micah Card and Dean of Students Don Turn ey,” said Chiang.
Card, along with the rest of the SGA, discussed the matter, and were deciding on how to act on it.
“They did have a vigorous and lively debate,” said Turney.
According to Turney, after debating, they then asked one another this question, “How could they have asked 16,000 other students to pay the bill for 1,000 students? Whether its $5 or $100? Is it right to ask them to pay?”
After the first discussion of the issue, the group then went into the campus to gather the opinions of BC students.
“SGA was very conscious,” said Turney, “they talked about it in classrooms, the cafeteria and about every person they asked said ‘not a chance.”
Some students heard about the issue last year while other students had no idea.
“I remember the first one,” said student Alya Whakeman, “I thought it was a good idea but I don’t think the public transportation is as effective as it could be.” Whakeman continued, “They need to fix that before they start inserting fees.”
“I didn’t hear anything about it,” said student driver Brianna Moses.
Initially, Moses did not like the proposal but after thinking about it she reconsidered.
“Maybe I wouldn’t like it so much,” said Moses, “actually, I think education is
important and If I’m paying $15 and I am blessed with a car, there are some people that aren’t as fortunate, but are still trying to get an education. I wouldn’t mind helping those people out.”
Martin rides the GET bus and had no clue about the proposition. She said that sometimes it is not so easy to come up with money, especially in the middle of the month.
“Some people don’t get paid in the beginning of the month and I do in the middle, but that is when all my bills come.”
Walking is out of the question for Martin, “I can’t walk either, I live over off of Union, So by the time I made it here I wouldn’t have class. Some people want to get an education but can’t because of money. I miss a lot of school because I can’t get the bus.”
After the issue was discussed amongst students and the SGA, Smith and former GET CEO Chester Moreland were invited to attend an SGA meeting to discuss the proposal.
“They voted after the presentation,” said Smith, “and voted it down.”
The main concern that last year’s SGA had with the proposal was that it was not going to benefit all students, and that GET was going to be getting a lot of money from students who would normally drive cars. Approximately $244,000 would have been received from the registration funds.
Smith had an opposing viewpoint and said that this program was to be more of a reward for current riders as well as an encouragement for potential riders. With the congestion of the parking lot, global warming seeping in and gas prices inching up, GET hoped that more students would see the benefit and convenience of the Gades card pass and option to use the bus more frequently.
She also stated that it costs approximately $400,000 to maintain one of the Compressed Natural Gas buses that GET now employs.
“We do what we can to help the community leaders and I think college students are just that,” said Smith.
GET would not be receiving any profit from the transition to the registration-fee pass, but the money would be put back into BC for further projects between the school and GET.
Smith also said that route 17 is one of the most ridden buses that the GET has in operation. The number 17 is the cross-town express that is a three-stop machine. It goes to the Southwest terminal at the mall, the downtown terminal and directly to BC.
She expressed her disappointment with the denial of the proposition, “We put a lot of work in that,” she said.
Current SGA President John Lopez said that he would be open for discussion of the topic. “I’m approaching this with an open-mind,” said Lopez. “I’d have to look at the numbers and see how many students ride the bus and how many drive, also, how many would take the bus that are drivers.”
Lopez continued, “If that was the case and 10 percent riding and 90 percent were driving, I couldn’t impose that.”
Lopez also said that he would be willing to discuss this topic and other school issues that students would like to know or have questions about on Oct. 31 in the Fireside Room.
GET said they would try this again if there was enough support, and if it had a chance to pass.
“We’d like to sit down and talk and see what would work for both sides,” said Marketing Manager Gina Hayden.