City officials and their counterparts at Missouri Western State University are touting the success of a new program of free bus rides.
Two years ago, the city and Missouri Western State University started discussing methods to make it easier for students to use transit to connect to the community.
These conversations eventually led to an open access program which allows anyone with a MWSU identification card to ride the bus free, with the cost of service being underwritten by the university. Now, the city announces results from that collaboration. Just over 10,000 rides were taken by MWSU students and employees during the 2016 fall semester. This result documents that four times more students are riding St. Joseph Transit than before the program began.
The development of the open access program traces its origins to the transit development plan completed in 2012. One of the recommendations of that plan was to explore collaborative opportunities with MWSU. With a student body of about 5,900 and another 500 full time employees, significant potential to increase transit ridership was identified.
After many discussions involving transit staff, university administration and students, a pilot program was initiated to determine if students would actually use transit. The trial period was very successful with student ridership far exceeding prior numbers, convincing the MWSU Student Government Association to budget funds to continue the program.
Open access programs between transit and universities are fairly common across the country. In an open access program, the university pays for anyone with a university ID to ride transit without having to pay a fare every time they ride the bus. Among other things, the university benefits from reduced traffic, improved safety on campus, and enhanced mobility for students. The community benefits from increased transit revenue and ridership (without additional expenses) and more interaction between students and community businesses.
St. Joseph Transit encourages other high volume customers to explore similar arrangements on behalf of their employees. Working together, St. Joseph Transit can help create and support a more mobile population in this community.