Did you get your SAC TTC Metropass this month? If you did, you’re one of the lucky ones.
If you’ve had to walk to school in the rain in the last few days, however, join the club. With extremely long line-ups and an approaching change to debit-only sales, the Student Administrative Council’s (SAC) student discount Metropass program is facing increasing demand on a capped product.
“I think it’s great that SAC has gotten discount metropasses for students,” said Ellen Dyer, a first-year Arts and Science student, “[but] there aren’t close to enough for all the students who want them.”
Like Dyer, many students agree that paying in cash is far faster than swiping your bank card, and with the change to debit-only transactions, there is a palpable sense of anguish that line-ups will only get longer and slower.
“I think it isn’t that good an idea. From experience, the cash transactions are much faster than debit and it seems like SAC will have to do more work rather than less when they change over to debit,” said Dyer.
“They need to estimate how many people need a pass,” said Hani Ali, a second-year English major. “Their debit dialling system takes forever, and when it gets cold it’s horrible to stand outside in line for 45 minutes.
“They also need to better publicize where they are selling them, so more people know,” he added.
The discounted Metropass is SAC’s second-largest subsidized service after the health plan. SAC orders the passes two-thirds of the way through the month using collateral, and SAC can only order as many passes as the TTC allows. In October and November, 7,000 to 8,000 passes were sold per month, generating about $100,000.
“This year, for October and November we have seen our TTC discounted pass purchases almost double. In fact, our sales have increased by about 30 per cent on average in comparison to last year,” says Monique Ferdinand, SAC VP of operations.
“We sell the passes at cost, and pay our staff out of SAC money,” says SAC general manager Rick Telfer. “With TTC pass sales up because of the new transferable pass [a pass that can be used by another rider when its primary owner isn’t using it], the TTC itself is running out of passes. About 60-70 per cent of sales go through the SAC building, but we allocate to the other organizations and selling areas first.”
“Unfortunately, our student union office does not have the facilities, security, and staff resources to handle with the high level of cash that is generated through selling thousands of TTC passes each month,” said Ferdinand.
It is because of all this money, she said, that SAC is bringing their debit-only system into effect, and they are taking steps to prevent resulting slower line-ups.
“In December we will have four debit terminals operating at the SAC office to alleviate the line-up.”
Currently, SAC is in negotiations to try and order more passes from the TTC, and to reduce pass prices as well. But Telfer warned that it won’t be a smooth process.
“With regards to getting more passes, it’s really not up to us. We are at the mercy of the TTC.
“They need to grant us flexibility one-third of the year when there is high demand for passes. There is a huge political dimension to this, and we have no bargaining power.”
