San Francisco Supervisors Urge MUNI to Discount Youth Pass

In response to recent MUNI youth pass fee hikes, the San Francisco supervisors adopted a resolution that may pave the way for up to 12,000 youth to receive free passes this spring.
San Francisco Supervisors Urge MUNI to Discount Youth Pass
2/17/2011
Updated:
2/17/2011
SAN FRANCISCO—In response to recent MUNI youth pass fee hikes, the San Francisco supervisors adopted a resolution that may pave the way for up to 12,000 youth to receive free passes this spring.

Supervisor David Campos authored the resolution passed by the board of supervisors this Tuesday and spoke with The Epoch Times about the need for affordable transportation fees for families in economic hardship.

“With the tough economy, families in San Francisco, especially low income families, have been hit pretty hard and I think many of those families cannot afford to buy a fast pass for their kids,” said Campos.

According to the resolution, “The fall 2008 YouthVote Student Survey found that, of the 8,256 San Francisco United School District (SFUSD) high school students surveyed, nearly seventy percent (69.3 percent) use some form of public transportation to get to school, and over forty percent (44.2 percent) of respondents took more than one train or bus to get to school.”

The resolution also discloses that in 2008-2009 roughly 40 percent of students within San Francisco’s public schools qualified for the free lunch program.

“The cost of the fast pass essentially doubled—went up 100 percent. I think it makes it makes sense for the city to help those families and that’s the reason why a resolution was introduced a few months ago,” said Campos.

“The price of the MUNI Youth Fast Pass recently increased… from $10 per month in May 2009 to $20 per month in May 2010,” reads the resolution.

According to Campos the MUNI directors have agreed to issue free youth passes to 12,000 students for the last three months of the 2011 academic year (April-June).

But with the current uncertainty surrounding the California budget, Campos mentioned that the future of the program is uncertain.

“Long term we do want to get to a point and make public transportation accessible and free of charge to as many as possible,” said Campos.