An initiative to make student IDs double as Metro SmarTrip cards is still a possibility, despite a controversial veto of the program by last year’s SGA president on his last day in office.
This year’s Student Government Association, led by President Steve Glickman, has made the initiative a priority and is sponsoring a survey to gauge student interest in the program. Combining the cards would be a first step toward establishing a student Metro discount, making it cheaper for students to travel into Washington and “capitalize on our proximity to the nation’s capital,” Glickman said.
The survey, created by Glickman and other SGA members, aims to determine if students would increase their use of the Metro if SmarTrip were incorporated into university IDs. The survey ends on Friday, and Glickman will discuss the results at an upcoming meeting with other Washington-area university leaders.
“Programs of this magnitude do not happen overnight,” Glickman said. “I will continue working with the university and other student leaders across the D.C. region as we work toward our goal. Progress is being made, and the survey is just one part of this process.”
One of the factors in then-SGA President Jonathan Sachs’s decision to veto the initiative was a lack of formal student input, and he said this survey might not fix the problem.
“I don’t know what the survey results are going to say, but the way it was written was extremely biased toward supporting the program, so the results will be skewed no matter what,” Sachs said.
But creators of the survey insisted it will be a good judge of student opinion.
“Because the SmarTrip initiative will affect students, it is important to involve students in the decision making process,” said senior marketing major Alysse Glovinsky, an SGA spokeswoman. “Student input is extremely important to the entire SGA, and the results of this survey will definitely play a substantial role in the SGA’s future involvement on this issue.”
Originally, the program was going to be financed by leftover SGA funds and student fees. Glickman said the SGA is trying to find more sustainable, alternative sources of money. He declined to be more specific but said many of the potential sources wanted to see hard data from the survey before putting up the funds. Last year, the program’s estimated cost was $23,000 per year.
“We have a few different options now,” Glickman said. “We have the money to implement the program next year. Right now, we’re looking for the best option for long-term funding.”
But Sachs and other critics of the program said it would waste thousands in student and university money because it’s already easy to obtain a SmarTrip card, which is a reloadable fare card that can be used on Metro trains and buses. It normally costs $5 to activate.
“To spend tens of thousands of dollars to begin this program, while students have access to SmarTrip cards anyway, seems foolish,” Sachs said. “I think it is a waste of a lot of money, and the positive effect will be minimal. … The problem has never been getting [to Washington], it’s been figuring out what to do once you are in the city.”
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