Student Transit Fare Discriminatory

Age Based Student Fare Discriminatory
Concordia University student Desea Trujillo says Montreal's public transportation provider is guilty of age discrimination. The Société de transport de Montréal (STM,) Montreal's mass transit corporation, offers a reduced fare monthly transit pass for full time students up to the age of 25. Trujillo, a 40 year old single mother and full time student, says she lives with same economic restrictions as younger students. Imposing an age based cutoff on the reduced student fare is discriminatory, she says.

Reduction for All Students Too Expensive
The STM spends roughly $22 million per year to subsidize transit fares for students aged 18-25, and says extending the reduced fare to all full time students would cost between $7 and $10 million more each year. Vice chairperson Marvin Rotrand says the cutoff at age 25 was chosen to strike a balance between cost and service. He claims most students are covered with the current fare structure. "This is a societal choice and the additional costs would have to be defrayed from somewhere," he said.

Reduced student fares have been an issue in Montreal for decades. I remember signing a petition to extend the reduced fare to all full time students, back in 1984 when the cutoff age was 18. It was not until 2002 that student fares were accorded to students age 18-25. While it was a minor victory at the time, Mayor Gérald Tremblay had promised in 2001 the student fare would be applied universally. A decade later, older students are still waiting.

History of Mature Students
Montreal is a city with a long history of adult students, reaching back to the establishment of its first YMCA in the 19th century. Concordia University evolved from a merger of Sir George Williams College, named for the founder of the YMCA, and the Jesuit run Loyola College. To this day the university has a strong tradition of serving mature students.

Continuing education and vocational schools for adults have sprung up in large number in the Montreal area over the last decade, and an increasing number of adults are returning to university to upgrade skills or to learn a new profession. Commuting is often the preferred mode of travel for even those students who own a car, as traffic coming into the city is heavy and parking difficult to find.

U-Pass: A Viable Alternative
While the STM is always quick to point out that Montreal has very low transit fares compared with other North American cities, several Canadian universities are now offering a much less expensive U-Pass (universal transit pass) to their students, regardless of age. The Victoria U-Pass costs $69.25 for four months, and students in Ottawa pay $145 per semester. A student over age 25 in Montreal currently pays $291 for the same period, and a student under age 25 pays $164.

Students from at least one Montreal university voted in favour of adopting the U-Pass, as early as 2007. The STM says they are open to the idea, but claims they would have to work to get a number of others on board to make it work.

Homeschooling Families Share Concerns
Student status has been defined not only by age, but also by where the student is educated. When the STM introduced OPUS cards to replace the previous system of paper tickets and bus passes, parents of homeschooled youth were concerned their children would no longer be eligible for fare reduction on Montreal's buses and in the metro. I participated in a number of discussions when parents read the student OPUS card would require that the young person "study full time at an institution recognized by the ministère de l'Éducation, du Loisir et du Sport du Québec (MELS.)" Homeschooling families are not considered schools under Quebec law, and can therefore not be recognized by the MELS.

Homeschooling parents in Montreal were pleased to discover that the STM was only applying the stipulation to students over age 16, as all children under that age are required to be full time students. Home scholars above age 16 are still excluded from the reduced student fare, as are distance education students of all ages who carry out full time studies by correspondence or online programs accredited outside of Quebec.

Sources:
"History." Concordia University Student Transition Centre

"OPUS Student (12-25 years old)." Société de transport de Montréal (STM)

Andy Riga, "Facing the student-fare dilemma." Montreal Gazette