California Community College Transit Programs

Vital Stats

Jorge F

Perris, CA

  • people helped7000
  • People Doing It 20

The Problem

Western Riverside County has some of the worst air quality in the nation. As a result, the health of many residents is negatively affected. Pollution comes largely from autos. Traffic on the area’s streets and the freeways often comes to a standstill, particularly during commuting hours. Riverside Community College District (RCCD) has three colleges (Riverside City, Moreno Valley, and Norco) in Western Riverside County and enrolls over 38,000 students. Each student must travel to class and most drive single occupant vehicles. This volume of cars adds to the traffic and contributes to the emissions problems harming the communities’ environment and quality of life. To add insult to injury, transportation as a cost factor: Car, insurance, gasoline, and maintenance payments can pile up for any cash strapped student. Therefore, I decided to seek a solution. Being in college and seeing the complications of parking and traffic congestion in and around campus I’ve come to realize that we (college students) are a major part of the problem. Something had to be done to get this to change. Change for the better ultimately came because I chose to do something.

Plan of Action

In August 2008, a demonstration Go-Pass program was established and offered through the Riverside Transit Agency in cooperation with RCCD with intent to demonstrate positive results to state legislators for a bill to allow easier creation of such transportation programs at colleges statewide. Meanwhile, the GO-PASS program allowed the more than 38,000 Moreno Valley, Norco, and Riverside City College Students to ride RTA fixed route and CommuterLink buses free of charge. Not only is the College Card a great way to get to class, it's also a free way to get to work, shopping, the movies or anywhere else RTA buses go. Getting students to and from class, releaving traffic congestion, cleaning the environment, and producing more parking availability are just a few of the benefits GO-Pass has to offer. GO-Pass became extremely popular: Ridership of RCCD students on RTA went from 2% of the student body in previous years to 10%. Currently, RCCD student ridership averages about 90,000 rides per month in months when school is in session. A major program benefit is reducing vehicle emissions. After one year the Go-Pass eliminated a total of 848,205 vehicle trips. Based on the number of riders, average distances from the campuses and South Coast Air Quality Management District (AQMD) emissions calculation formulae, the Go-Pass program eliminated an estimated 2.2 tons of reactive organic gases, 2.1 tons of nitrous oxides, .75 tons of particulate matter and 23.8 tons of carbon monoxide from Western Riverside County air its first year. AB 774 (Cook) was introduced. It was signed by the our governor on October 11, 2009. Now more than 107 CCC districts can create a transportation program. After just fourteen months the One Millionth GO-Pass rider was celebrated! More work still needs to be done. The program is now in its second year but has the potential to help influence the future culture of transportation for CCC students. RCCD is leading the way. With positive recognition California Community College Transit Programs can flourish. I have created a website to showcase the GO-PASS AT RCCD. My hope is that others can become inspired by what can happen when someone chooses to do something! More work still needs to be done. I feel that this program needs to have farther reaching influence. The program is now in its second year but I believe that it has the potential to help influence the future culture of transportation for CCC students. The GO-Pass is leading the way by example and its benefits need to be marketed. I believe that the positive results yielded by the GO-Pass at RCCD are meager in comparison to the potential to what another 50 or 90 similar collegiate transit programs can do in the near future for the preservation of our environment while creating more transportation solutions for higher education students in California and cities throughout the state. The plan of action is to add more CCC to the list of insitutions that offer transportation solutions to help preserve the environment, assist students in meeting transportation needs, and help all California residents breath a little better.
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