Student bike sharing pass starts in September 2024

The initiative organized by MSU offers daily 90 minutes access to Hamilton Social Bikes at a reduced rate

IEarlier in March, the McMaster Student Union held a referendum to include a discount on the Hamilton bike pass as part of tuition starting in September 2024. This initiative will provide students with a sustainable and affordable way to get to and around campus, with an opt-out option for those who don’t want to bike.

Following the successful bike share referendum passed by MSU last academic year, a $24.50 incl. tax incidental fee has been added to the tuition of full-time McMaster undergraduate students. This fee gives them membership in the Hamilton Bike Share program.

Students who do not opt ​​into the program will receive an annual bike pass, which provides access to a network of publicly-shared bikes at 130 locations in Hamilton, including seven stations on the McMaster campus.

The pass is accessible through the Bike Share SoBi mobile app, where students can create an account and register with their MacID credentials. Once registered, students can use the app to unlock bikes, pay for rides, and ride for 90 minutes each day. Users also receive a $10 credit for additional features that may incur a fee, such as locking a bike outside of a designated off-campus station.

Students who exceed the daily 90-minute limit will be charged $0.15 per minute on their account, which is the normal rate for Sobi users. The regular annual pass costs $192, meaning full-time students benefit from an 88.7 percent discount.

The bike-share initiative was spearheaded by a group of seven students who advocated for the program on campus. In 2023, the group circulated a petition to determine whether students would support the pass, collecting approximately 870 valid signatures. Following this, they worked to draft a memorandum of understanding between Hamilton Bike Share and MSU.

In an interview with Silhouette, Xin Law-Gallagher, One of the co-organisers of the programme shared how they raised awareness about the proposed programme in the run-up to the referendum in March 2024. “We went around to everyone in the libraries, the student center, the study places and handed out stickers and an information card with a QR code that said, ‘Have you heard about this referendum?’ … The answer was always no,” Law-Gallagher said.

The co-organizers indicated that they believed the most effective method to increase voter turnout was to visit popular classes. They contacted professors from various departments and gave presentations at the beginning of each class, encouraging students to vote.

Paris Liu, another co-organizer of the bike pass, shared her motivations with The Silhouette, in which she emphasized her concerns about the climate crisis. “I think everyone in the group joined for different reasons… for me it was mainly the climate crisis, seeing how urgent it was and how the transportation sector in Canada is contributing to that.“said Liu.

Liu said she hopes the program will help foster a cycling culture across Canada and increase active mobility. “I hope that (the) success (of the pass) will initiate a cycling culture across Canada because in Canada it’s just not really prevalent … whereas (in) Europe it’s very normal … to have a bike-sharing discount pass for students at most European universities,” Liu said.

On March 6-7, 2024, students had the opportunity to vote for or against the bike-sharing referendum held by MSU. A total of 4,264 of the 25,714 eligible undergraduate students voted, approximately 17 percent. Of those who voted, 94.5 percent were in favor of creating a 12-month bike-sharing pass at McMaster.

The referendum had to be passed by a simple majority and required a minimum turnout of 10 percent for the ballots to be valid. A previous referendum in 2016 failed by a narrow margin of three percent.

Michael Wooder, who is responsible for the operations and management of the MSU, spoke to the Silhouette “I see tremendous value in this program because it provides another sustainable improvement to transportation options for students. Combined with the fact that it’s based on an opt-out model … a student might see this as a win-win option if they didn’t like biking,” Wooder said.

The new student rate will generate more than $600,000 annually for Hamilton Bike Share, making McMaster students the largest source of revenue for Hamilton Bike Share.

Wooder noted that Hamilton Bike Share and MSU worked together after the referendum to implement the program for all full-time students, including creating privacy policies and procedures for sharing data with the university.

“…there’s a memorandum of understanding between MSU, (Hamilton) Bike Share and McMaster University … that says SoBi will have a minimum of 100 bikes on campus during classes … that doesn’t limit them to just 100, but that’s the operational floor,” Wooder said. He added that Hamilton Bike Share will monitor student usage trends to plan to meet the growing demand for social bikes.

Wooder expressed hope that the program will become a comfortable and sustainable form of transportation in the long run.

Marketing for the bike sharing program will start in the coming weeks. You can unsubscribe from September 1st to September 30th.