Originally Posted by thedog123123

the fact of the matter is for those people who use the HSr bus be happy for having a cheap bus ride at the cost of other students.

Bottom line mandatory bus pass is bull****.

And don't give me no parking, congestion or environmental bs. As a person who walks to campus there is zero benefits of a universal bus pass system.

If i wanted to throw away hundreds of dollars I'd give it to charities not to make someones bus ride cheaper at my expense.


Ya i know bit of a heated argument but being forced to pay something that you'll never use is frustrating.

I don't see what the fuss is for students that don't drive that live on-or-off-campus, since they will likely ride the bus to go grocery shopping, see friends, go out to eat, etc. often enough that the bus pass would be cheaper than buying individual tickets anyways.

Originally Posted by thedog123123

the fact of the matter is for those people who use the HSr bus be happy for having a cheap bus ride at the cost of other students.

Bottom line mandatory bus pass is bull****.

And don't give me no parking, congestion or environmental bs. As a person who walks to campus there is zero benefits of a universal bus pass system.

If i wanted to throw away hundreds of dollars I'd give it to charities not to make someones bus ride cheaper at my expense.


Ya i know bit of a heated argument but being forced to pay something that you'll never use is frustrating.

There are tons of fees included in my tuition that I will never use. This is life.

http://www.mcmaster.ca/bms/student/p...s_included.pdf

My choice to come to McMaster was based partially on the fact that it cost so little to get to and from school. Other schools, like Ottawa, don't have bus passes and I would have had to shell out almost $1,000 more per year. I don't have that kind of money :(

Originally Posted by thedog123123

...
And don't give me no parking, congestion or environmental bs. As a person who walks to campus there is zero benefits of a universal bus pass system.
..

You're ridiculous... do you not leave campus or something?

Originally Posted by Kathy2

There are tons of fees included in my tuition that I will never use. This is life.

http://www.mcmaster.ca/bms/student/p...s_included.pdf

My choice to come to McMaster was based partially on the fact that it cost so little to get to and from school. Other schools, like Ottawa, don't have bus passes and I would have had to shell out almost $1,000 more per year. I don't have that kind of money :(

I just read over that whole list of fees. I now feel very entitled to a drive in this solar car I paid a dollar towards.

Originally Posted by REPLEKIA/.

I just read over that whole list of fees. I now feel very entitled to a drive in this solar car I paid a dollar towards.

Well if you join the solar car team, you can drive it! :D

Here's something to think about: How many times has the bus driven right past you at your stop, because they are at capacity? Why hasn't the HSR done anything to solve this?

Currently to go into the Emerson/Whitney/East Mountain area, you need to either take the 5A/51 to get to campus, or the 5C/51 from campus. The reason why there's some inefficiencies with their bus system is as follows:

- The Delaware and University routes come at almost exactly the same time! Within a minute or two! Why not stagger the buses so that one bus comes every 10 minutes, instead of two every twenty minutes? The gap is a bit ridiculous.

- Why do the 5A and 5C have the smaller capacity, non-hybrid buses? Clearly it's the larger route and will have more passengers compared to the 51. I have seen many people stand at the bus stop letting the shiny new 51-route bus attempt to pick them up, with the 5A and 5C passing them right by (since, you know, they often arrive at the same stop, and the same time)!


I don't need the HSR to put more buses on my route, I can see they have plenty. I just wish they'd be more efficient with their resources. Regardless the price for anytime use of the HSR is a steal and I would gladly pay for it, but definitely see room for improvement.

Originally Posted by Iman

Well if you join the solar car team, you can drive it!

Electrical team was a total flop. Meetings on Thursday nights, when there are midterms for 3rd year ECE students? Wicked. Heard I can totally go to those.

The ECE midterm schedule is posted online right on the department's webpage. I don't know about exact splits for what department the team is comprised of, but it makes sense that ECE dominates it. The fact that there was no accommodation or forethought to 3rd year, yet there was one for a 1st year test, is ridiculous. It makes no sense. Sure, you want to encourage 1st years to stay on, but when you're driving away students with knowledge to contribute...?

Don't mean to chew you out, but people need to get their shit together. I gave up after missing 3 straight weeks of meetings because of tests.

Originally Posted by eullwm

Electrical team was a total flop. Meetings on Thursday nights, when there are midterms for 3rd year ECE students? Wicked. Heard I can totally go to those.

The ECE midterm schedule is posted online right on the department's webpage. I don't know about exact splits for what department the team is comprised of, but it makes sense that ECE dominates it. The fact that there was no accommodation or forethought to 3rd year, yet there was one for a 1st year test, is ridiculous. It makes no sense. Sure, you want to encourage 1st years to stay on, but when you're driving away students with knowledge to contribute...?

Don't mean to chew you out, but people need to get their shit together. I gave up after missing 3 straight weeks of meetings because of tests.

At the beginning of the year, we asked which days were good for which people, and apparently Thursday was the best. If you'd like to discuss it, send an e-mail to the solar car team ([email protected] ) and hopefully we can be more accommodating next semester. I believe the elec team had accommodations for first years because they brought up the issue of midterms being on Thursdays... If you don't bring up the fact that ECE has midterms every Thursday, we don't know about it and can't fix the problem!

Anyway I'm going to stop derailing this thread.

P.S. I love the bus pass and hope it stays! I only use it occasionally but it's so great to not have to worry about finding the $2.55 I need for fare during the school year.

Originally Posted by Kareko

I am so glad that we have this feature, honestly the cost and trouble of getting tickets or a monthly pass in some other schools really made me realize how lucky we are.

QFT. As a student who commutes everyday via HSR its a lifesaver. I always hear students on campus saying that its not fair and thing like that and I understand where their coming from. McIntyre brought up some great points though.

I'd be SOOOOOO upset if we didn't have this feature anymore.
I love it.

Lifesaver.

Originally Posted by RyanC

You're ridiculous... do you not leave campus or something?

Some people walk, some people bike. You do know people can walk and bike right....

The hsr bus pass costs 121.80 per student a year.

there are ~ 20 000 UG students at mac. Therefore to make HSR happy they want ~2.43mil dollars

Lets say half the students at mac opt of the hsr bus pass. That means that the remaining half of students who want hsr would have to pay 243 a month. That would only cost you guys ~120 more
That is still much less than the 696 you would have to pay. That would would make everyone happy.

You can even extend this simplified argument further. Say a 25% discount is as low as students would go to be consider worth their while. That's 522/month and therefore only ~4700 students (23.5%) would need the bus pass to satisfy the HSR condition.

I think the Student union should research how many people use the HSR and how many would still be willing to use their services at varying price ranges. I mean my argument here is very basic and theres obviously some flaws with it but the point is still clear: There is other ways to handle this problem.

Originally Posted by McIntyre

If the U-Pass were an opt-out program, and only the people who regularly used the bus contributed to the agreement, the pass would cost about the same amount as buying eight adult bus passes, almost eight times its current price.

Is it possible you could explain the maths used to get this total?

Let...
n1= number of students who pay into the current plan
c1= the amount each student pays
nc= total amount of money paid to HSR currently

n2= number of students who would not opt out
c2= the cost that would each student would pay under the new plan
nc= still the total amount of money paid to HSR currently

As far as I can tell, it should follow a formula of n1c1=n2c2. And as long as nc doesn't change, the plan should still be revenue neutral. c2, the cost of the new plan to each student, would increase by eightfold only if n2 decreased by the same amount. ie 7/8 students opted out. And I can't see that number being even close to accurate. Even if 50% of students opted out, that should still only mean the price gets doubled.

Unless I missed some key factor (definitely possible), I can't see how the price would increase that much.

I'm pretty sure that the deal is 140% because there is a lot of students who do not use the bus service. Those who do not use it are at a loss because they are essentially paying for the bus fare of the people who do use the HSR.

Originally Posted by Marlowe

Is it possible you could explain the maths used to get this total?

Let...
n1= number of students who pay into the current plan
c1= the amount each student pays
nc= total amount of money paid to HSR currently

n2= number of students who would not opt out
c2= the cost that would each student would pay under the new plan
nc= still the total amount of money paid to HSR currently

As far as I can tell, it should follow a formula of n1c1=n2c2. And as long as nc doesn't change, the plan should still be revenue neutral. c2, the cost of the new plan to each student, would increase by eightfold only if n2 decreased by the same amount. ie 7/8 students opted out. And I can't see that number being even close to accurate. Even if 50% of students opted out, that should still only mean the price gets doubled.

Unless I missed some key factor (definitely possible), I can't see how the price would increase that much.

according to the dude you quoted. 1/8 of the students would not opt out. So unless the guy knows some other important statistic I don't believe the 8 times argument either.

People don't seem to get the relationship here.

If you let people opt out, the price goes up. If the price goes up, those who don't use it that much will opt out and the price goes up more and more.

I know hardly anyone that doesn't use the bus sometime. Each time you use it for a round trip you can knock $5.10 off your "subsidy" to the rest of us.

This is actually why this is a great deal for us. While the HSR only tries to equalize their revenue with the non-existence of the U-Pass, we actually get more value as many people take trips by transit they normally wouldn't take (and therefore wouldn't be accounted for in the fee).

In addition, it doesn't just benefit those who commute by bus regularly.

Even if you live on campus, I can't count the number of people I've seen riding the bus from campus to their favorite evening hot spots. Even if you live in walking distance to campus, I know people who find it convenient when its really cold, or when they want to go shopping.

What if I drive? Well it means you can use street parking further away and hop a bus for the last little bit. Or if you park on campus, it reduces demand for parking and therefore helps keep the price under control.

Plus who says your car isn't going to break down, or you're going to pull a leg muscle or something. A couple of weeks of commuting by bus and you've almost made back your fee.

In reality, most people I know probably get at least half their value back if not more, which is probably more value than most students get from CFMU, Incite magazine, the Solar Car, the Childcare Centre, the QSCC etc. etc... (Not to knock these fine programs but I think as far as subsidies go, the U-Pass is probably one of the ones where most students get at least something out of it)

The idea of opting out because you'll never use it though seems odd. Can I opt of the whole welfare system? I.e., can I refuse to pay taxes for welfare programs, if I agree never to draw from them? Can I opt of the student insurance plans if I don't already have other insurance?

Unfortunately at some point there can't be opt out for some things to work. In some ways its just like you can't opt out of property tax for roads if you don't drive.

That's my spiel anyways.