 "Photo: Karen Kuhn")
The new Green Passes will be available for students to pick up on Jan. 5. These new passes will allow students to ride Capitol Metro busses for free. This is an exciting new resource for students who use Capitol Metro for transportation. The passes are great, but that doesn't make them green.
These student bus passes are something that ACC has been looking into for a long time, and it's great that they are finally here, but calling them green and using the new sustainability fee to fund them is a smoke and mirror act that defeats the purpose of the sustainability fee.
Students who have cars and drive to school are not going to suddenly decide to take the bus because it's free. Taking the bus has always been significantly cheaper than driving, but the students who could afford a car, still drove.
The claims that these passes will help alleviate parking problems and reduce car emissions is far from realistic. It's doubtful that the passes will have much of an effect on the college's carbon footprint or lack of parking.
Looking at the faculty and student responses to the announcement of this pilot program, its clear that the people who will benefit from this program are the ones who already use capitol metro.
The green passes still will not be able help public transportation compete with the convenience of driving a personal car. The bus doesn't have an iPod hookup; you can't leave a dozen pairs of shoes, heavy textbooks and all the trash you accumulated while driving, in the backseat of the bus for when you need it later, and if you're running late for class the bus driver will not speed up or skip stops to get you there on time.
The college has taken on quite a few projects in the last semester that could be considered truly green, like the first ever green building, the new alternative fuels course, and a college-wide recycling program.
The money raised by the new fee should go to fund programs like these, because pretending these passes will have an environmentally friendly effect is a great big green lie.
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2 comments
but at the same time they are finally leveling the playing ground between UT and ACC, and no longer can
ACC students say UT students are treated better because they get "free" public transportation.And, I mean really, can you think of a better incentive to get some, maybe not ALL but SOME people to switch to public transit? I mean, posters, or news articles aren't really doing jack in that regards, but now that tuition includes public transit it at least is a step in the right direction. You should balance your view more with how this does have more positive than negative about it