Province Extends U-Pass BC Program for 2 More Years

According to a July 6 letter sent from the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure to the U-Pass BC Advisory Committee,

The Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure has now received Treasury Board approval to extend support to the U-Pass BC program for an additional two years (May 2016 to April 2018) which should be sufficient time to allow program stakeholders the opportunity to engage in meaningful dialogue on the long-term future of the U-Pass BC program. The province will be asking TransLink to lead this process over the next two years in our new U-Pass BC Contribution Agreement.

The two year program extension will require TransLink to continue to nominally increase student monthly fares to help cover inflationary costs of transit services at similar increases seen over the last two years ($38 per month currently, $39.50 in year one and to $41 in year two of the extension).

An FOI’d briefing note ^[1] from the Ministry of Transportation noted that the province contributes $11M to the program annually, representing approximately $9 per student per month.

The AMS will have to hold another referendum within the next year for students to approve participation in the program from 2016-2018, but given that the last U-Pass referendum in 2013 passed with 96.4% approval ^[2], that seems like a formality.