SRJC hopes to renew discounted bus-ride program for students with Santa Rosa, Sonoma County and Petaluma

Linda Fleming had money on her mind while waiting for her bus Monday afternoon near Santa Rosa Junior College.

The 63-year-old Cotati resident, who is studying to become an accountant, doesn't think she could afford to attend SRJC full-time if she wasn't able to board any Santa Rosa, Sonoma County or Petaluma bus simply by showing her student identification card.

“After my rent is paid, there is no money left over for bus fare,” she said.

Santa Rosa Junior College students would continue to be able to board any city bus just by showing their CubCard under a resolution that will be considered Tuesday by the Santa Rosa City Council.

The city first signed off on the arrangement in fall 2017. The updated deal - through which local governments are reimbursed through a fee paid by SRJC students - would run through June 2020 and include four one-year renewal options, according to a copy of the proposed agreement.

SRJC has similar agreements for discounted student rides aboard Sonoma County and Petaluma buses, and the college aims to extend those deals as well, said Robert Ethington, senior dean of students at SRJC. The college also has an arrangement with the Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit system to provide discounted passes to a few dozen students each semester.

About 10 percent of SRJC students ride buses to and from school, Ethington said. SRJC students rode a Santa Rosa CityBus about 17,500 times in September alone and took an estimated 75,000 CityBus rides per semester, he said, citing data provided by the city.

“For the college and this relationship with CityBus and the county, those are big numbers,” Ethington said, noting that student bus riders lower the college's carbon footprint and ease the demand for SRJC's parking lots.

The cost of the student rides are reimbursed to transit agencies through a transportation fee that junior college students approved in 2017.

Students pay $1 per course unit per semester, not to exceed $10 per semester, and there is a built-in exemption for low-income students.

The deal with SRJC would provide the city $194,000 over 18 months to pay for the students' CityBus rides, according to a staff report prepared for the City Council.

So far, the SRJC student fee has “fully covered” the city's cost of furnishing the rides, the report said.

Increasing ridership and improving access to education make the deal a good one for Santa Rosa, said Rachel Ede, deputy director of the Santa Rosa transit division. “Anytime we can provide easier access to transit, that's a good thing for the city,” she said.

The new agreement would increase the city's reimbursement by a penny to 84 cents per SRJC student ride.

Ede said that figure was the average CityBus ride cost, including adult fares of $1.50, discounted rates for seniors and youngsters and people with disabilities, and regular riders who save money by buying 31-day passes for $50.

Ede acknowledged there was a “relatively small” financial risk for the city if SRJC's ridership continues to grow but called that “a problem we can solve” by requesting grants or seeking other funding sources to supplement the student fees.

“From the standpoint of getting people into seats on the bus, I think it's a win,” she said.

“They're running those buses no matter what, right?”