The Undergraduate Assembly, the Graduate and Professional Student Assembly and the University Council have all put their weight behind a proposal calling for the administration to improve the current PennPass system, which offers discounted Southeastern Pennsylvania Transit Authority fares to students.
On Feb. 18, GAPSA unanimously passed a resolution asking the administration to make the PennPass program "more cost effective ... more flexible and easier to use," according to GAPSA Vice Chairman Michael Janson.
"We think the program should be more attractive to the members of the Penn community," he said.
Backing GAPSA's sentiment, the UA passed a similar resolution on Sunday.
"We're calling on the administration to lobby SEPTA to come up with an economical model that makes sense for students," said UA Chairman and College senior Jason Levy.
Currently, the majority of students do not seem to think that the benefits of the PennPass outweigh the cost of $250 per semester, with only 288 students purchasing the card this spring.
"That's 1.42 percent of the Penn student population," said UA member Aparna Chandrasekhar, who has been conducting research about similar reduced-fare transit programs.
GAPSA Chairman Emeritus Kyle Farley found this low percentage to be disturbing.
"For a school that claims it's an urban university, that's not a big percentage," he said.
In order for the PennPass to be an economical alternative to purchasing individual SEPTA tokens, a student must use public transportation at least 193 times per semester.
Chandrasekhar and Farley support a University-wide student program providing unlimited access to public transportation. The fee of the program would be deducted from every student's tuition.
Praising the benefits of the universal access program, Chandrasekhar noted some positive effects that she thinks would undoubtedly result if it was instituted.
The universal access program "helps the city, the transit service and the University participating in this program," the Nursing and Wharton senior said.
Farley also saw the implications of the universal access program as far reaching.
"There are no losers -- everyone wins," he said, noting that similar programs at other schools have resulted in substantial ridership increases.
But Farley said he is focused on more than just increasing statistics -- he also wants to see a shift in the mindset of Penn students.
"We need a new culture," he said. "Right now, the culture at Penn is one that does not use public transportation."
But not everyone sees the universal access program as necessarily the optimal way to change the "Penn culture."
Janson said that currently GAPSA as a whole is "not making a specific recommendation about what the [PennPass] program needs."
Instead, Janson said GAPSA's proposal just stressed that "the program needs to be prioritized, and the declining enrollment needs to be" reversed.
The University actually did consider a universal pass program about three or four years ago, according to Manager of Transportation Services Ron Ward, who said that at that time, the program "was cost prohibitive for the University."
The total expenses of the program "came out to be something between $2 and $4 million that the University would have to pay to SEPTA every year," Ward said, adding that "at that point, we had no surveys or basis to see if students would actually use the services."
Chandrasekhar plans to change that and is currently designing a survey that will be distributed to the student body, from which she hopes to find out how much students would be willing to pay for SEPTA access.
Highlighting the fact that SEPTA only subsidizes the PennPass 5 percent, Ward said that the "University's contribution right now is $16" per pass.
"If there was going to be a greater discount, the University would have to decide to absorb the additional cost," he said.
