Bus pass fee to increase

Federal grant funds end for bus program 

By Ky Belk
The Metropolitan

$16.70 might not be enough.

Thatās the current cost per student each semester for the Auraria bus pass program, which allows students with a valid student ID to ride local buses for free.

But the bus pass fee might increase. A potential 50 percent decrease in the subsidy Auraria receives from the Regional Transportation District may require students to pay more for the two-year-old program in the 1998-99 school year.

Some Auraria students have mixed feelings about a higher cost of the bus pass.

Jeff Golden, 30, a transfer student to Metro from the University of North Dakota, said he has never used mass transit in Denver before but said he will soon since it only costs him $16.70 per semester.

ćIāll use the (RTD) pass every day,ä he said.

Stephen Mason, 28, a graduate student at the University of Colorado at Denver, takes a different view on the pass since he wonāt use the bus this semester.

RTD subsidized $450,000 of the programās annual cost in the 1995-96 and 1996-97 academic years. Federal grant money the government allocated to RTD made the subsidy to Auraria possible, said John Pung, a research and sales supervisor with RTD.

The flow of federal grant money ended last year, so RTD cut its subsidy to Auraria by 34 percent or $298,209.

The current estimate for the 1998-99 RTD subsidy is $125,000, but Pung said some negotiation is expected.

RTD offers Auraria colleges the subsidies for two main reasons.

Providing a bus pass for approximately 30,000 Auraria students bolsters RTDās efforts to reduce pollution downtown and relieves traffic congestion. The subsidies were to help students get the program started and gain experience riding mass transit, Pung said.