Someday, your trip to Adams-Morgan may cost less than the $1.85 it does now. District universities are in talks with the Washington Metropolitan Area Transportation Authority to set up a program that would allow university students to ride the Metro at a discounted rate.
“We’re closer than we’ve ever been to having a product for students,” Sally Kram, the Director of Public and Governmental Affairs of the Consortium Universities of the Washington Metropolitan Area, which is representing the Universities in the talks, said.
D.C.’s Universities will probably be responsible for making up the difference of the discount to WMATA, according to Kram.
“Metro has informed us that they must sell their farecards at face-value, so a campus could put part of the cost in their student activities fee, and then the school can give that money to WMATA. Or another option would be for the schools to just pay WMATA,” she said, adding that this is how D.C. Public Schools provide for the K-12 Metro discount.
Christopher Zimmerman, the chairman of WMATA’s Board of Directors, doubted that the D.C. Government would opt to subsidize student farecards, which he said other cities do.
“Trouble is right now, we’re in the red,” he said. “Next year, they’ll probably be cutting a lot out of their budget. It’s not a good environment in which to be looking for new programming, so the schools have to pay for it somehow.”
In order for WMATA to approve the proposal, all universities in the Consortium must agree to it. University leaders have been talking with WMATA since the spring, and earlier this month student leaders from George Washington University and American University joined the conversation. Georgetown University leaders were not in attendance, and University spokesperson Julie Green Bataille had not heard of the initiative.
