UA eyes increase in student use of SEPTA services

A proposed plan would allow students to pay for SEPTA use by swiping their PennCards. SEPTA officials have recently responded to an Undergraduate Assembly proposal by suggesting a system in which students could swipe their PennCards to pay for subway, bus and trolley rides. The UA will vote Sunday on a smaller-scale proposal: to partner the PennCard with the mass transit system by allowing students to use the PennCash system to purchase SEPTA tokens at a discount. In an effort to make this plan materialize, the UA recently passed a series of recommendations which will increase the number and accessibility of token machines on campus. SEPTA Vice Chairperson Richard Voith, who also teaches in the Wharton School, said the mass transit system is looking to convince the University to join its "UPass" program, which would allow the University to buy SEPTA passes for the entire student body at reduced prices. The charge for using SEPTA would then appear on a student's bursar bill. In Penn's case, the "UPass" would allow students to swipe the magnetic strip on their PennCards to gain access to the SEPTA system. "If you sold [passes] to the entire University community, the cost per semester would be dramatically below [the $65 monthly pass cost]," Voith said. "It's good for the community, good for us, good for Penn." "Whether the students or the University want to do this is another question," Voith added. "SEPTA is extremely anxious." SEPTA spokesperson Stephan Rosenfeld said, "One of our priority campuses is Penn. [Penn is] traditionally a transit-friendly campus." The recommendations to increase the accessibility of SEPTA token machines are based on results from a UA survey conducted last fall after SEPTA and University officials expressed interest in students' opinions on the regional transit system. Gathering about 60 responses, the survey found that nearly 80 percent of students surveyed would use SEPTA more often if the transit system offered a student discount. "I think SEPTA is a very underused resource," said UA Chairperson Bill Conway, a Wharton junior. "I've never heard of a Penn student riding on a bus -- the subway, maybe -- never a bus. They wouldn't know how to get anywhere." The UA has compiled a list of possible token machine sites, including the trolley stop at 37th and Spruce streets, Harnwell College House and the Quadrangle. A token machine is expected to be installed in the University Bookstore later this month. The UA also proposed selling SEPTA tokens at the commissaries, prompted in part by successful token sales at the Hill College House services center. "We're putting token machines by the [SEPTA] stops, but we're also putting them where students buy their ice cream and cigarettes," said West Philadelphia Committee Chairperson Mike Silver, a College junior. "We're making tokens more accessible." The recommendations also call for more student accessibility to SEPTA schedules and route maps. Nearly 60 percent of surveyed students said they would use SEPTA more often if they were better informed about routes and schedules. Accordingly, the UA proposed that residential advisors be required to post SEPTA route maps on their hallway bulletin boards. The UA also has plans to collaborate with SEPTA by providing schedules, route maps and possibly complimentary tokens to incoming freshmen at CUPID next year. "[SEPTA and Penn] really now have to deliver on getting token machines and the weekend pass," Silver said. "[The UA] has done everything that they've asked us to do."