Things are getting better

To: Members of the Washington University Community

I am very pleased to announce an important new program for Washington University full-time students, benefits-eligible faculty and staff, and full-time employees of qualified service providers who perform daily tasks.

Effective July 1, those eligible may request a Metro Universal pass from the University that will provide FREE access to the entire Metro transit system, including buses and light-rail that serve St. Louis City and County and Madison and St. Clair Counties in Illinois. The pass, along with your University ID, will enable you to use Metro to commute to and from the campus, travel from one campus to another, or for your personal use to access locations throughout the metropolitan region.

Washington University has signed an agreement to pay Metro for this service and is one of a few institutions in the country to provide this type of program. Not only will it offer a convenient and inexpensive way to travel from one location to another, but it also will open up numerous new opportunities for members of our community and give strong, visible support for public transit in the region. The Metro pass offers an
important alternative to facing rising gasoline and parking prices and avoiding significant congestion due to highway and road construction planned in the near future.

Please go to http://transportation.wustl.edu to learn more about this program. The link will also provide information about how this new program will affect our University shuttle services. I encourage you to request the pass when it becomes available later this year.

Mark S. Wrighton

Public transportation is awesome. I'm not sure how long it will take to pay off the investment that the Metro-Link represents, but I'm pretty sure it's a damn good thing for most people. The most important benefit of public transportation is that it allows you to read, listen to music, whatever--while you are moving. I have no moral objection to cars, but even if you listen to Books on Tape, you have got to feel like you are wasting your time when you are driving, especially in traffic. When you're walking or biking, you're at least getting exercise and interacting with your environment in some evolutionarily satisfying way. But driving is like TV: a way of demanding attention without really engaging the participant. Thus, any time more people are presented with an alternative to driving I am all for it.
As for the above letter, it's great. Now that there will be a stop literally on campus, students will be able to live anywhere in the county without needing to drive, as long as they are near a metrolink station (admittedly, a rare thing indeed). But let's not pretend that the university had wholly green(as in trees) motives in mind: there is the other (also green) financial incentive. Any person who lives within walking distance of a metrolink station now has access to Wash U, and can thus work here. This increases the supply of available workers tremendously, meaning that, demand remaining constant, wages will go down. I don't imagine that Wash U would have the willingness to actually cut current employees wages or benefits, but those who leave will be replaced with people who are more able to work for cheaper: people who live near Metrolink stops. Workers for subcontractors will suffer the most, as Wash U won't look as bad if it cancels a contract with a company instead of firing people. Those workers who already take the Metrolink will be better off than ever.
So in the end we should not imagine this is all about saving the environment and doing our part in order to wean ourselves off oil. On the other hand, just because this will hurt some current workers does not make it bad. Because the end result is more efficient, it means that the economy is better off, more competetive, and Wash U can keep competing and getting better.