This is so cool. An overwhelming "yes" vote from McMaster students to add a small bike share fee to their tuition, and it becomes the largest source of funding for the system. The kids are alright!!
@mbonsma@gcvsa I hope the ability to opt-out doesn't kill the deal, IDK the politics there, but bundling bikes + transit with housing or something would seem to cover everyone collectively enough that they don't need to leave a chance of randomly undermining the bikeshare funding (in the US it would probably be undermined by the university parking dept... that's been sold to some private company, probably.)
@enobacon@gcvsa when I was in undergrad at Waterloo there was a universal transit levy of something like $50 per semester. You could opt out but almost no one did - it felt like a free bus pass.
@enobacon@gcvsa also the idea that people should be able to opt out is kind of strange to me, given that we all pay for many services we don't use for the public good. Where do I opt out of the portion of my tax that subsidizes the vehicle registration program in Ontario? Where do I opt out of taxes for roads I don't use?
Yep — and holy Moses, the amount of tax money that goes towards maintaining bike infrastructure in most cities is a tiny fraction of what goes towards maintaining automobile infrastructure
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