A petition created by DePaul graduate Cedric Ngwa who wants to issue discounts for college students who ride the Metra continues to have an active engagement within the DePaul community. The petition was written on change.org back in February of 2017 and calls for a $3 discount for one-way tickets for full-time students and $1.50 for part-time students. The primary area of concern is how high schoolers are eligible for a discount while students who are in college must pay the full price of a Metra ticket. On Sept. 12, Ngwa posted an update on the petition that the board is pushing for the state of Illinois to subsidize the rising operational cost after the board voting against the 50 cent fare increase for 2019. This decision will result in yearly increases.
Sophomore Hana Bayssa shared the petition to the official class of 2021 Facebook group urging people to sign the petition on Oct. 24. Before sharing the petition the facebook group, she has seen the petition a few times and did not pay much attention to it. This past summer, Bayssa worked on campus and had to commute from the suburbs back and forth twice a day for the entire week, and she realized that it cost a lot of money. After researching more about the Metra, she found Ngwa's petition and admired the idea. Bayssa notes how she feels very passionate about this, and commuters face a lot of struggles. If she were to commute, which was a consideration for her, she would have saved a lot of money.
Although Bayssa lives on campus, she understands that this is an important issue. As a Chicago quarter mentor, Bayssa mentioned how many of the students she mentored in that class were commuters. In her class, Bayssa mentions how there were a lot of commuters in her class and they would voice to me all the struggles of being a commuter and I needed to do something. It is about DePaul being a commuter school so she decided to repost it. One of the reasons why this petition will benefit college students, according to Bayassa would be that students save money. Another aspect Bayssa notes is how most people live on their own and support themselves and as college students, many don't have that much money. Thus, getting that $3 discount adds up in a full year and I think it is important that we get this petition signed.