Students will dig a little deeper to pay for transit after July’s price hike ( Photo: Adam Dietrich )
 
 
In order to commemorate the anniversary of the last increase in OC Transpo transit fares, prices for bus passes and tickets are going up July 1.
 
The price for tickets and passes will increase although the cash fare will remain the same.
 
Last year fares went up 5 per cent on 
July 1 as well.
 
A regular bus ticket will rise from $1.00 to $1.15 and the student monthly pass 
will increase from $62.65 to $65.25. The semester bus pass, for students, will rise to $242.00.
 
New yellow tickets with a face value of $1.15 will be replacing the green and pink tickets used previously.
 
 
The green bus tickets will expire July 1, 2009 while pink bus tickets will be valid until Dec. 31, 2009.
 
According to city councillor and transit committee chair Alex Cullen, the increase in service and rising costs to operate the transitway are the reasons for the new ticket and pass prices.
 
“OC Transpo is funded 50-50 from fares and taxes, and as labour costs, fuel and bus equipment costs go up, so do the fares and taxes that support public transit,” said Cullen.
 
Some students understand the need for more transit revenue.
 
"OC transpo hopes to increase the service available and with  the cost to run the busses, I
think the rise in bus fares is necessary,” said Craig Domenicucci, a second-year bachelor
of commerce student at Carleton.
 
But, the inconsistencies of service at the beginning of the year due to the transit strike raise questions for some towards the validity of this fare increase.
 
“The fare increase shows the true 
character of the OC Transpo [officials], they are greedy and deceitful,” said Nadia Rehman, a second-year communications student.
 
“Money is tight for university students and this only adds to financial stresses,” she said.
 
Fourth-year computer science student Steve Hutchinson agreed.
 
“I think it’s kind of ridiculous that they go on strike, and then they increase the fares,” he said.
 
Although many riders will be unhappy with this increase, the 2008 Transit Services Annual Performance Report noted that
82 per cent of transit users rated OC Transpo service as overall “good “or “very good” in the attitude survey.
 
This performance report is meant to be a summary of how transit services were planned, operated and managed while also serving to monitor how the services are evolving year to year.