Staff editorial: Get smart

Giving every student a free Metro SmarTrip card is a decent idea. Taking $23,000 away from student groups to do so is a horrible one. Taking $17,000 away, year after year, is a truly atrocious one.

Student Government Association President Steve Glickman finally appears to understand the difference. Making every student ID a SmarTrip card was a major part of his campaign platform last year, and as a SGA senator, he successfully sponsored a bill that would have started the program using student fees. But then-SGA President Jonathan Sachs vetoed it on the last day of his term.

Glickman has abandoned the idea of using student fees and claims to have found several sources willing to pay $23,000 in startup costs, though he won't say anything about their identity. He is still looking for a sustainable source to pay the $17,000 in yearly expenses. It'll be difficult to find organizations to perpetually spend tens of thousands of dollars a year. The only guaranteed, iron-clad sustainable source of money available to the SGA is student fees.

It's certainly good the SGA has found donors willing to spend $23,000 on university students, but there are better ways to use this generosity. Financial aid appeals have skyrocketed. Student groups can always use more money. Engaged University, which the SGA called "essential" a month ago, needs $300,000 to keep going. In comparison to these needs, the combination SmarTrip-compatible ID cards are a boondoggle. And a boondoggle is a boondoggle, regardless of whose money is spent.

Giving every student a SmarTrip card, Glickman and other advocates say, would help promote public transportation and strengthen the university's link to Washington. These are both admirable goals shared by the entire university. But it's highly questionable that the new IDs would do either one of these things. It would not be cheaper for students to travel on the Metro with the IDs, and the increase in convenience would be almost negligible.

The university's ties to Washington are already strong. Hundreds — if not thousands — of students intern, work and visit the city each week. Dozens of adjunct and full-time professors have Washington-centric backgrounds. Not every student makes the most of these ties, but that's mainly due to a lack of interest, not a lack of access. The $5 activation fee attached to a SmarTrip card is far from prohibitive, and most students who spend any significant amount of time in the city can easily purchase one.

There are steps the SGA can take to promote access to and interest in Washington. One is to continue to advocate for the Campus Drive route of the Purple Line. The biggest barrier between on-campus students and the nation's capital is getting to the College Park Metro Station. The Shuttle-UM buses already help, but being able to start the journey in the heart of the campus would make students' lives easier.

The second step would be to create a student Metro discount, which the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority doesn't offer.  Glickman is meeting with other Washington-area student leaders to discuss a proposal for a student discount tomorrow.

The SGA claims the SmarTrip/student ID combinations would be the first step toward a discount. But guarantees from WMATA officials are necessary before any money is spent upgrading student IDs. A discount wouldn't have a huge impact on student interest, but it would be a much more substantial incentive than free SmarTrip cards would be.

SGA officials disagree with this idea and are conducting a survey they believe will show that students will use the Metro more if they have a SmarTrip card built into their IDs. The results of the survey won't be available until tomorrow, but its scientific validity could be questioned. If the SGA really wants to judge student interest, it should have a university-wide referendum on the issue in the spring. If students, fully informed of the details and realities of the plan, want SmarTrip cards and are willing to spend money on them, then students should get them.

Right now, the SGA spending its time — and potentially students' money — on a Metro discount makes sense. But just pursuing SmarTrip cards with no promise of progress is more likely to be a waste of time than anything else. Incrementalism works when each stop brings benefits beyond just being closer to your goal, not when breaking down would leave you stranded.