The Mike Haddad Show: This is relevant to my interests.

I didn't even go to Laurier when they voted on their U-pass proposal. For a school that was so small, it was a bitter fight - catty even. Things were said that I wouldn't say to the fag who just spilled his drink all over my new shirt at Crews. I sort of understood the people who weren't supporting it too, even though my relationship at the time made supporting it a necessity. GRT is more that a little useless. Kitchener, Waterloo and Cambridge aren't made for taking transit from point A to point B. It is kilometre after kilometre of suburban nothing. Usually you have a friend who can drive you to the mall (not that either of them were very good). You can walk to the bars - unless you're gay, but then there was always someone who could drive to Ren. People didn't want to pay for something they weren't really going to use.

Fast forward to now. The referendum has long since passed and Laurier got their U-pass. It even spurred UW to get one of their own. My friends who are still at UW love it. They say it costs them $50-$60 a term, and they use it to go everywhere. U of T on the other hand is in the earliest stages of considering one.

The offer is $480 for the school year, which breaks down to $60 a month. That's about half of what the Adult Metropass costs now and amounts to a total of 11 round trips - anywhere. I can understand people not being so keen on it. Luckily it seems most of the people who aren't keen on it are also the kind of douchebags who throw around terms like "theft" and "communism". Nothing like being over the top to get some attention.

Being a U of T student means you're not going to get the best deal for your U-Pass. The TTC is one of the most expensive transit systems in the world, thanks to years of underfunding and low subsidization. My economics schooling aside (it leads to a lot of criticisms of how the TTC is run), and doing my best to keep my personal bias to myself, the U-pass proposal is still a good deal for the majority of U of T students. Unfortunately for the ones it isn't for government at all levels from Student up to Federal in Canada are broken, so it doesn't matter if they're getting hurt. That's why I think it's going to pass.

The reasons why I think the U-pass SHOULD pass are numerous, but I'm too exhausted after my midterm to go into them all. Dealing with my personal bias, I make far more than 11 round trips a month. Second I know tons more people who WOULD make 11 round trips or more. A person who's taken more than first year economics will realise how utility suddenly rotates to a position where transit is the most desirable option when it's offered at what amounts to a 50% discount.

The problem with this is that (aside from the poor writing) the people who should read it won't. The ones that do read it will just get bitter and angry, and fume about the fact that I'm such an obnoxious socialist (despite the fact that the know better) because of what I've said. It probably didn't help I called them cunts. Whoops.