Is the Bus Still Running?
By: X Vazquez
When I first moved into UC Berkeley, I received a clipper card with my face on it accompanied by my Cal ID card and dorm keys. This clipper card was a free AC Transit pass, granting me free bus rides throughout the East Bay my first and second year. A few weeks ago, I caught a bus at 2am and my clipper card declined. Confused and needing to get home, the bus driver waved me through and my friend informed me that the school had ended its free transit program. I’d been on a semester abroad in the Fall and hadn’t received any notice that I no longer had access to this school program.
Apparently, these clipper cards were a pilot program set to end in Spring of 2025, just in time for AC Transit price hikes this summer. I remember the ASUC having students vote on a policy to make it permanent, but election results aren’t the easiest to follow at Berkeley. Free public transit felt like a tangible perk of my tuition, and a much-needed relief for many commuting students. With a rising cost of living, the loss of a free public transit option is another painful twist of the knife alongside cuts to education and public transportation.
The UCs are facing an 11 percent reduction in state funding and bracing for federal cuts with the gutting of the Department of Education and research grants. The UC Regents look to tuition raises and faculty and service cuts to fund these gaps. The immense financial stress placed on us students is a direct result of Prop 13 and the popularization of neoliberal austerity that’s exponentially raised costs of higher education and public transportation.
Being a young student approaching the workforce, I’m crushed by the weight of the cost of living, the reduced opportunities allotted to my generation, and the ticking time bomb of student loan payments. We’re experiencing a collective stress only complemented by soaring profits for corporations and billionaires who escape paying their fair share of taxes, directly hurting the services we rely on. In these dire circumstances, reforming Prop 13 is a harmless solution benefitting so many of our public services. If taxing wealthy businesses fairly isn’t a viable solution, what is?