An online petition demanding that U-Passes be made available to all Northwestern students has been circulating listervs and social networking sites.
The petition states that NU currently provides U-Passes only to students of the Graduate School, McCormick, Feinberg and Medill. The petition goes on to state that students of other NU schools would benefit from having access to U-Passes. The petition asks for 1,000 signatures. The creator of the petition is not given.
RTVF sophomore Ben Leyden was the first to sign the petition after receiving it through the RTVF listserv. He said he understands that students need access to the city for a variety of projects and said he was looking out for his future as an RTVF major when he signed the petition.
Leyden said that although he did not visit Chicago as often as he wished, he feels having a U-Pass would have given more incentive to travel outside of NU.
“I just feel like having to pay for a train ticket, even though it’s not that much money, just the act of like paying, paying money out of your pocket to go downtown acts like a kind of deterrent,” he said.
Leyden acknowledges that giving every student a U-Pass may be unreasonable, but he said he believes there are circumstances where students should receive one, no matter what school they are in.
“I think ideally it would be great if every student can have it, but I realize that that is not probably realistic,” he said. “I think the way they do it, where they base it on certain classes and majors is more reasonable. If you’re going to be enrolled in a class where it is going to be necessary or really beneficial to have access to the city, then they really shouldn’t have you pay for it.”
As of June 20, the petition has 959 signatures.
