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Photo by Dan Janisse / Windsor Star

Ridership, which had been stagnant in recent years, is up 3.5 per cent, thanks to U-Pass, equating to 227,000 more bus rides a year. And now part-time students have voted to join the U-Pass program starting in the fall.

“The uptake has been very, very impressive,” said Coun. Bill Marra, who chairs the Transit Windsor board and is hopeful of getting St. Clair students on board with a U-Pass program as well. “Getting more students on the buses and exposed to public transit has been very, very valuable,” he said.

All these new initiatives are aimed at increasing ridership, Delmore said. And when that happens, revenue climbs and improvements to the system are possible, which again leads to increased ridership, revenues and more improvements, he added.

The U-Pass program was supposed to be revenue neutral, meaning the money lost from $66-per-month bus passes that some students bought was offset by getting $66 per semester from everyone. But the program has generated more revenue than expected because fewer students than predicted opted out (they can opt out if they live in the county), enrolment was higher than expected and the increased ridership has resulted in more cash from the province’s gas tax. That extra money will be ploughed back into improving service to the students, Delmore said.

“This builds a community, it really does, because it gives you the additional dollars into the system to help you to build it, and then other people are attracted to the service,” Delmore said of the U-Pass program.