U-PASS Advisory Board Meeting October 31st, 2017 1:30-2:30 HUB 238 ATTENDEES: Anna Johnson Steven Tuttle Sorana Nance Tori Hernandez Zach Howard Jacob Brett Brian O’Rourke Noah An Reed Keeney Jonathan Dang Bucoda Warren Absent Rene Singleton Anne Eskridge Jacob Turpin I. II. III.

Public Comment Period a. No public comment Approval of Agenda and Previous Meeting Minutes U-PASS Financials a. KEENEY: Describes the layout of the budget that has been distributed to students. b. U-PASS program currently in surplus. There is currently a $2.5 million balance through the end of September. However, since school hasn’t really started since the end of September, we usually wait until the end of October to assess our financial standing. c. Compared to the prior year, we are in some respects doing better this year. d. HOWARD: gives background information on the trust. The target for the trust is 1/12 of the operating budget. The $2.5 million is closer to 15%, which is pretty healthy. King County Metro fare simplification in the next fiscal year will increase student transit costs, so we should keep that in mind when looking at the reserves. e. KEENEY: begins discussion of how the U-PASS is funded. Most of the funding is through student fees, and most of the costs are for transit agency fares. Relative to the total program costs, the non-transit costs in this program are rather inconsequential. Really, when we talk about expenses for the U-PASS, we are talking about transit fares.

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f. When working on the business plan and the budget, we do try to “seasonalize” the numbers. The time of year is important because student U-PASS fee varies widely outside the academic year. g. WARREN: How do these figures compare to last year’s? h. KEENEY: Revenue is down a little, and expenses are up a little. The difference was that last year, we had next to nothing in the reserve balance. We don’t expect a strong year for revenue because there was no fee increase, while transit costs are still, of course, increasing. So we are doing better than expected compared to last year. i. WARREN: Do transit costs correlate to cost of living expectations? j. KEENEY: Over time, periodically, there is usually a fare increase at the box on transit. Not all transit agencies increase fares over the same timeframe. We’re able to absorb rate increases a little more for some agencies than others. Fares from King County Metro, Sound Transit, and Community Transit contribute the largest portion of transit costs to the U-PASS program. k. HOWARD: In 2015, when the AB raised the rates, we based that increase on projections from the Metro fare increase. And Reed is right that there are some additional costs incurred on light rail, and we try to determine whether this is happening because of rate increases or because of increased ridership. We build this information into our models. l. The vast majority of our expenses come from transit costs. One of the reasons the U-PASS costs what it does is because students pay for each trip. We want people to have transit options, but that does come with a cost. m. BRETT: Service improvements increase U-PASS trip costs, too. n. HERNANDEZ: What came out of the flat fare change that METRO made? What happened to the joint letter that was written? o. HOWARD: The council is still looking and considering that. We can talk about what this group can do to follow up on the student rate considerations, if the AB is interested in doing so. I can look into when public meetings will be held. p. HOWARD: Reed will join us once a quarter. He is a great resource. q. KEENEY: Invites any questions about the economics of the U-PASS program. Item of information: public response to U-PASS a. HERNANDEZ: GPPS has a lot of nontraditional students who have had concerns about how the U-PASS is paid for. I have two specific examples, one from a student who would rather drive and another from a distance learner. How should we address these concerns to our constituents? b. HOWARD: Gives a description of the process. There is a U-PASS advisory board email address and all responses have template language which have been put together by the Board. The U-PASS Liaison handles emails. c. CONT: The position of the AB has been that there are no expectations to the UPASS fee. If the student pays the SAF, he or she also must pay the U-PASS Fee. SAF includes many other student fees which are also probably not useful for students off campus. But since U-PASS fee is its own line item, it is sticks out as more prominent when the students go to pay tuition. d. CONT: We use indirect language about the benefits of U-PASS, e.g. if you subsidize transit costs through U-PASS, you help other students.

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e. HERNANDEZ: I think that these answers are not sufficient if our constituents have to come to us, their student government, to address these concerns. What may be some other areas that you all as students would talk to your peers about how the U-PASS system works? My concern is that I have been giving the same template response and it seems insufficient. f. HOWARD: One issue is that we don’t receive a lot of in-person public comment. We can forward email public response to the AB if you would like that. g. AN: A quarterly overview of responses would be good. h. JONHSON: You could bring those reports and use them to make them discussion items for future meetings. i. NANCE: Maybe to address one way you can talk to experiences is to use personal stories to show how actual students use and benefit from U-PASS. j. BRETT: Making the switch to a universal funding model was a big shift – TCC used a survey to determine student support. Explaining the context behind the fee will serve the students in the long term. We can’t expect everyone to be 100% on board with the fee. Elections of Chair and Vice Chair a. ULMAN: Ulman reviews the responsibilities and powers of the chair and vice chair. b. BUCODA and TUTTLE volunteer to be Chair and Vice Chair respectively. There are no objections. Begin work planning a. ULMAN: Ulman gives a description of the work plan. b. WARREN: Warren reviews the work plan from last year’s AB. c. HOWARD: Also address your attention to the “future topics for consideration.” d. TUTTLE: What was the most recent Night Ride service expansion? e. HOWARD: Last year, the AB piloted an expansion during finals week. There was a large student interest, determined through survey, and that will be fully implemented this fall quarter. The future topic of consideration here would be a performance evaluation. f. TUTTLE: What is the U-PASS program on the other UW campuses? g. HOWARD: They are opt-in programs. Tacoma’s U-PASS is at $45 per quarter. That cost is low due to the limited service to and from campus. The Bothell UPASS has risen to over $100 per quarter. h. TUTTLE: And the other campuses can’t be on the same U-PASS program? i. HOWARD: No, they are separate campuses with separate student governments. I am happy to provide any updates on what the previous AB accomplished. j. WARREN: Is anyone interested in reaching out to Bothell and Tacoma to see if they would like continued support on their U-PASS programs? k. HOWARD: We can look into that; we haven’t heard much so far. l. JOHNSON: Can we work with other college campuses in Seattle as a response to fare changes? m. HOWARD: Last year was the first time that student representatives from other colleges approached the AB, asking the UW to sign a letter in support for a student fare. The challenge of working with other student bodies is student turnover each year, but we can certainly reach out to other campuses and see.

n. JOHNSON: When the King County Council considers something like fare simplification, what is the UW’s impact on those discussions? o. HOWARD: A decent portion of trips on Metro are conducted by U-PASS holders. However, we have not heard a response on the letter from KCM p. WARREN: Have you looked at service projections for the 2021 light rail expansion? q. HOWARD: We don’t have that completed yet and will work with the agencies to set up projections. We will update the AB when we learn more. r. WARREN: Even broad projections would be useful so we could increase fees slowly over time so it would be more palatable for the student body. s. TUTTLE: More recent service projections for ST are not yet available either. t. HOWARD: It’s true, projections take a while to put together and the agencies take time to set up their internal analysis – they are probably not at that stage of the planning process, but we will get more information on that. u. HERNANDEZ: Would ridership info from Husky Stadium Station be useful? v. HOWARD: We can take a look at that. w. BRETT: It won’t be a one to one ratio, but yes, we can get that to you. x. WARREN: We should consider adding consideration of rate and service increases to the work plan. We should also consider the feasibility of stop gap coverage between quarters and LIFT. y. HOWARD: Howard gives a description of ORCA LIFT program. ORCA LIFT is a program for low income individuals, for which many students would be eligible. For ORCA LIFT to be integrated, we would have to somehow incorporate an identifier in the student data base for who is eligible and who is not. A push from student leadership would open more doors on this issue. z. AN: Could we add that to the work plan? We should also add the student fare requested from King County Metro. aa. HOWARD: AB could certainly consider more ways to get involved in the public fare rate change process. We will need to get a better handle on what the timeline of that would be. bb. TUTTLE: Could bike share work with U-PASS to get some kind of discount? cc. HERNANDEZ: There are already some discounts for people with university email addresses. dd. HOWARD: We can definitely keep exploring ways to partner with bike share companies. ee. AN: A solution to gap quarter students would be good to talk about. ff. HERNANDEZ: When did the last survey about the topic of universality came out? How much emphasis was placed on student demographics? gg. HOWARD: That survey was conducted in 2010. There is a full report on the AB website that overviews the demographics of the survey. hh. HERNANDEZ: Maybe we could revisit the survey process to confirm student support of the U-PASS program. ii. HOWARD: Some AB members need to leave now, but we can continue this conversation about the survey. We can resume work planning in the next AB meeting.

Adjourned at 2:37