U-PASS Advisory Board Regular Meeting April 8th, 2016 I.

Present:  Adam Khan – Advisory Board Chair (ASUW)  Hester Serebrin – Advisory Board Vice Chair (GPSS)  Tyler Wu – ASUW Representative  Alice Crowe – ASUW Representative  Timmy Bendis – ASUW Representative  Shreya Ahluwalia – ASUW Representative  Anna Wittow – GPSS Representative  Sarah Loeffler – GPSS Representative  Cooper Smith – U-PASS Liaison  Rene Singleton – Student Life  Charles Kennedy – Facilities Services  Celeste Gilman – Transportation Services  Zack Howard – Transportation Services

II.

Five Minute Public Comment Period Acknowledged

III.

Agenda Introduced Adam: I’d like to add a very small amendment, to briefly discuss attendance at the end of the meeting. Amendment approved at 2:04pm Adam: Motion to approve agenda. Alice: Seconded. Agenda approved at 2:04pm

IV.

Feb. 5 Minutes Presented Amendment to change “ASUW” to “GPSS” representative for Anna Wittow. Amendment to change “Thomas” to “Alice”. Adam: Motion to approve minutes Timmy: Seconded. Minutes approved at 2:06pm

V.

Item 1 – Transportation Services Leadership Update Charles: As you may have heard by now, last Friday Josh resigned. In the interim James Angelosante will fill this role. During this time we will work on the Faculty U-PASS. We will be

going through the financials and preparing for a presentation to the Board of Regents, and the Advisory Board as well, because the partnership that Josh forged was very powerful and a good one, and we want to maintain that. I want to thank you for the work you’ve done to stabilize the Student U-PASS and your willingness to come up with a universal pass for students, and that you’ve added the ability to support it over the next couple years with the fee increase has all done a lot to stabilize the student portion of the U-PASS program. We will be looking at different options to stabilize the Faculty U-PASS this year, but then a long term plan after that. There’s been a lot of good work done with the bike programs, we’ve invested quite a lot into the electric vehicle fleet, and we have extra vehicles coming to lower our carbon footprint, and a lot of that has been done with your support , and we really appreciate that. Hester: Can you talk more about the Faculty U-PASS plan? Can you talk about what it entails, or what we’re up against? Charles: As you might recall in Josh’s discussion with you: a few years back both programs were teetering, but the work the Advisory Board did stabilize the student portion. However, the faculty portion was not. This was due to the university subsidy staying flat as ridership increased, decreases in parking revenues, aging facilities, and the tax increase, all of which created a lot of financial pressures on the program. What we’ve been asked to do is to come up with a scenario that would ask “What would a zero increase in [Faculty U-PASS] fees look like for this year?” At the UTC this past week, one of the things mentioned was that the Professional Staff Organization did a survey and it came back positive that professional staff would consider a universal pass. But that did not necessarily include the other unions. So over the next few months we will be looking at all of these options to stabilize the program for the future. Hester: What amount of money would it take to stabilize the program for this year, and if not with fee increases, where would it come from? Charles: We are still discussing that at this time. That is the big question. *Charles departs* VI.

Item 2 – Fee Chairs’ Written Recommendation Update Adam: In front of you now is the “Joint Statement on U-PASS Distance Learning Exemptions” signed by various student leaders and fee chairs. Please take a moment to review and suggest changes to the document. Timmy: I’d move item 3 to the top. Adam: My idea of listing them was there wasn’t any hierarchy.

Alice: For the signatures, there is a missing vertical bar for Kerstin Hudon. Celeste: Hyphen U-PASS under your (Adam’s) name. Hester: Show intent to broaden U-PASS coverage where possible. Zack: Broaden language to indicate that the Univ. of Washington as a whole has no reliable means of identifying distance learning students. Hester: There are a couple places where it says just ‘the board’. We should distinguish between ASUW and the Advisory Board. Also use of the word “wisdom” seems a bit colloquial. Celeste: Add a date to the letter. Adam: Great I will run these edits by the signatories. Thanks for your help! VII.

Item 3 – 2016-17 AB Appointment, Onboarding, Returning Members Tyler: I met with Adam, and we talked about the way we appoint ASUW members to U-PASS. The current system is the incumbent ASUW President opens the application, nominates the 3 best candidates, and then the incoming President actually appoints them. But that results in appointments being designated really late. So the question is how can we open the application and appoint new representatives by the last meeting of the academic year, so that we can invite these new members to see how the incumbent board runs their meetings? As far as Senate, we will have to wait till fall anyway, and that will potentially leave opportunities for a freshmen senator to get involved, since they won’t be around in spring to apply for the position. But obviously this is up in the air, and nothing is written in stone, so I just wanted to solicit opinion from the board. Adam: We’re mostly worried about the seamlessness of the process, in order to avoid having a jarring transition from the retreat to the first meeting. Timmy: My concern is for the Senate, that the Senate Liaison comes in so late. About a month in. If Senate could hold open meetings and appoint a liaison from that meeting I think would be better. Alice: We are technically always in an open meeting, so what might make sense is to get in touch with Senate leadership who are appointed at end of this year and ask them to consider interested individuals. Tyler: I’m not really sure how it works with GPSS. Sarah: I think that would be a fantastic idea for GPSS as well. I can run this by Alex Bolton and clarify the GPSS process, as well. Working with established leadership at the end of this year

sounds like a better option; getting things up and running at the start of the year is so time consuming. Celeste: The more we can get members identified and serving on the board to get continuity through the summer the better. Summer is always awkward because students are gone, but is big for us [Transportation Services] because that’s when we do the student contract, and other important items particularly this summer like potential timing of hiring a new director, and King County Metro’s look at low income fare for colleges and universities. Rene: My suggestion is that ASUW and GPSS representatives should go back to senators, execs, boards, and ask all bodies to appoint members to the U-PASS AB before the end of May 2016, and have the people who will run for those positions if necessary do so before that timeframe. Have the AB representatives currently in these positions serve out into June so you have outgoing and incoming representatives at the same time, have crossover before the transition of incoming and outgoing senators, and make it an emergency in both bodies. Tyler: What would really help, is I would like to know what specific date we want to have the retreat, so I know when to have appointments in place by. Zack: What I remember from last year, there was lots of haziness right after election. Having input on that from you (Tyler) would be helpful. The first weekend of June at the latest would be the best for us [Transportation Services]. Tyler: Yes. So end of May first week of June for orientation, new appointees. Rene: Maybe do same meeting times but different days, one meeting part A, one meeting part B. Or one longer special meeting. At that time every department is having their big goodbye parties, so maybe before everyone leaves today find some good times that everyone can come to besides this time. Zack: Keeping with the same schedule for this quarter would probably be best. Let’s take a poll. *Poll results: All available for June 3rd 2pm. Celeste: Cooper, please send out a poll for availability on June 3rd. Tyler: Great, we will have people appointed by June 3rd. VIII.

Item 4 – Metro Service Changes Zack: I’ve been out in the field since the new light rail station opened, and have been gathering feedback from folks on the changes that have been implemented. We would really love to hear some feedback from you all about what you think, or what you’ve heard from others about their experiences since the Metro changes took effect. Sarah: Just the light rail or the whole change? Zack: Everything is fair game.

Alice: A couple things. People up toward the north and slightly west of campus claim that their service was reduced in a way that they found detrimental. Also Convention Place station is considerably less useful without the suite of 70s. Looking at light rail station in terms of an approach status, that giant walkway is not fully paved and I would be concerned about the ADA compliance of it. Also the signage down by the light rail station, walking towards campus, is a bit confusing as there is no marking for the turn to go up Rainier Vista. Also, lots of people asking to bring back more 49 busses. Timmy: The main complaint I’ve heard is King County reduced fare doesn’t work on the light rail, not transferring from King County Metro to Sound Transit. Zack: I’m not sure how reduced fares transfer. I know it doesn’t work for cash. Timmy: Another thing, when going from SeaTac Airport the announcement says confusing things and doesn’t specifically say ‘downtown’. Sarah: Also one side says ‘to Seattle’, and the other says ‘to UW’. Hester: I’ve heard about some displeasure with the transfer environment. Timmy: With Sound Transit 3 coming along, I’ve also heard a lot of complaints about no Ballard or West Seattle extension. Adam: I’ve mostly heard that some students are confused about where and when to tap. Rene: I’d like to find out when they finish the survey about the nighttime extended hours as a point the board could raise. IX.

Item 5 – Campus Transportation Survey Results Zack: You have before you the Campus Transportation Survey, which contains a representative sample of students, faculty, and staff from the University, and many important metrics. I’d like to highlight mode share on page 5, which is very important, and I want to point out to you that for first time ever transit is not the number one way for people to get to campus. The addition of on-campus housing has probably had a big effect on this, while light rail may also have a big impact going forward. Overall we saw the drive-alone rate go up, across all populations, but within the margin of error. We also saw a significant reduction in the cost of gas which may have also played a role in this increase. Hester: Given the faculty and staff levels of drive alone, and Charles talking about exploring options, at next meeting maybe we could revisit writing a letter about supporting a universal staff and faculty pass based on this information we have before us. Zack: There’s also some data in here about where people park and that’s relevant to U-PASS because when people park on campus they are assessed a TDM fee which supports the program. When people park off campus, they are not. So that’s one of the many balancing acts Charles was referring to earlier.

X.

Item 6 – Advisory Board Attendance Adam: So lastly that brings us to attendance. I’m impressed with today’s turn-out. However if you are not able to attend in the future, that’s something ASUW representatives should talk to us (Adam and Roy Taylor, ASUW Director of University Affairs) about. Alice: I’d like to move to adjourn in honor of the new university light rail system. Adjourned at 3:01PM