We all should count ourselves lucky to study at such well-situated campuses. Claremont itself is a tight-knit, shade-filled suburban oasis offering great weather, world-class amenities and a quaint, small-town feel while remaining within spitting distance of one of the world’s most influential cultural and economic hubs.
However, one of Claremont’s Achilles heels is, paradoxically, location and transportation. Even with a car, navigating Southern California can be daunting, expensive and time-consuming. Without one, it can seem impossible. Public transport accessibility is a major weakness of the Los Angeles area — and while useful bus and rail services border the 7Cs, routes are often drawn-out and inconvenient.
This fall, this difficulty stands to significantly lessen. LA Metro’s latest expansion of the A Line will open today at noon, enabling faster trips from Claremont towards Pasadena, Downtown and other destinations. Unfortunately, public transportation has recently gotten much more expensive for 7Cs students.
This summer, Metrolink’s Student Adventure Pass pilot program expired, ending free rides on the Southern California regional rail network and many connecting bus services. Now, 7C students must purchase TAP fare cards or tickets to travel across the region car-free, with the sole exception of the free fares on Foothill Transit’s bus services across the San Gabriel Valley offered through their Class Pass partnership.
Other premier institutions in the region, like USC and UCLA, participate in LA Metro’s much more useful U-Pass program for little or no added cost. The Claremont Colleges Services (TCCS) could join them and again provide us with free transit access across Los Angeles County. The fact that we have not considered this, undermines the 7Cs’ commitment to the environment — and students deserve better.
For the past few years, students and youth across Greater Los Angeles, regardless of where they go to school, have enjoyed free fares on regional rail and connecting buses through Metrolink’s Student Adventure Pass pilot program. Metrolink — a Southern California agency separate from LA Metro established to focus on “commuter rail” trains such as those that blast their way through Claremont several times a day — started the program in order to boost ridership post-pandemic.
Free fares for students were a huge hit: In less than a year, student ridership doubled to make up 25 percent of Metrolink’s total boardings. Unfortunately, the huge state budget surpluses, which funded the Student Adventure Pass program, have since dried up, ending 7C students’ free access to not only Metrolink trains to Downtown LA and San Bernardino, but all of the other rail and non-Foothill Transit bus lines that connected with the network.
U-Pass is offering students at participating colleges and universities across LA County free access to Metro Rail and all the county’s major bus operators, including Foothill Transit. While U-Pass does not provide free rides on long-distance Metrolink trains, it still provides compelling service to the region, especially with the Sept. 19 grand opening of several nearby LA Metro Rail stations.
Starting today, Metro A Line trains will run up to every eight minutes along the 57.6-mile route between Pomona and Downtown Long Beach, increasing accessibility to the region while adding negligible difference in travel time to hubs like LA Union Station. The A Line also stops at destinations like Pasadena and many parts of Downtown LA, providing connections via the growing Metro Rail system to Expo Park, Koreatown, Culver City, Santa Monica, Hollywood, the San Fernando Valley and, by the end of the year, the terminals of LAX and the outskirts of Beverly Hills, with much more soon to come.
While Pomona North Station, the new end of the A Line, is not within walking distance of Claremont — and the planned extension of the line to Claremont Station is still a few years away — students could use one of several Foothill Transit bus routes on the perimeter of campus to connect free of charge. Yet, as it stands now, only the connecting bus trips are free of charge for 7C students, while entire trips across the region could be free under U-Pass.
It’s clear that U-Pass would provide 7Cs students with much better transportation options than Class Pass does, and it’s unclear whether it would even cost TCCS more to operate. U-Pass works by charging schools a discounted rate of $0.75 for each trip students take using the pass. However, according to Hendy Satya, Marketing and Communications Manager at Foothill Transit, Class Pass is charging the 7Cs a higher rate of $0.875 per ride. This suggests that students would have to use U-Pass about 17 percent more than they use Class Pass just for TCCS to break even — otherwise, they would actually save money by switching to the superior U-Pass program.
Of course, if student transit ridership greatly increases because of U-Pass’s broader benefits, this could end up costing TCCS over time — but surely paying a few dollars more per student each year would be worth it for our wealthy institutions, which have already raised tuition by historic amounts, to offer students greater access to free, environmentally friendly transportation across our county.
There are a few other issues for TCCS to consider in making the switch. By far most importantly, Class Pass covers 7Cs staff and faculty in addition to students, while U-Pass would not. Although faculty and staff constitute a minimal proportion of the Class Pass program’s current users — according to Satya, 18 faculty and staff across the 7Cs activated Class Pass cards last school year as opposed to 1,211 students, making up less than 2 percent of the program’s 24,070 total boardings — TCCS should still work with Foothill to maintain this benefit by continuing the Class Pass program for those ineligible for U-Pass.
And while switching to U-Pass wouldn’t return all the same benefits to students that the Metrolink pilot program did, particularly since it wouldn’t cover most transportation in San Bernardino County, it is still a no-brainer for the 7Cs to offer this vital service to students.
With the new Foothill Extension of the Metro A Line revolutionizing public transportation in the surrounding area, there’s never been a better time to think big about expanding transit access on campus. TCCS must move beyond its outdated, car-oriented thinking about student needs and take the responsible step of moving to provide U-Pass access for students as soon as possible.
Nicholas Steinman CM ’28 is a new transfer student, but he’s already walked the twelve miles from Claremont to the current end of the A Line at Azusa a few times. He hopes to get more involved on campus now that he won’t have to.
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