Employees to get free bus pass

The Madison Common Council has approved an agreement between UW–Madison and Madison Metro to provide free city bus passes to university and UW Hospital and Clinics employees.

Beginning Aug. 25, employees will be eligible to board Madison Metro fixed route buses and paratransit services by showing the pass and a faculty/staff or hospital identification card.

Details on how the passes will be distributed to employees will be announced later this summer.

Transportation Services Director Lance Lunsway says hospital employees were a recent addition to the one-year pilot program — which was initially intended for only university employees — to ease demand on parking structures near the hospital. Over time, the bus pass may also help reduce road congestion on campus and in surrounding neighborhoods.

Developing transportation alternatives has been an on-going campus priority, as the demand for parking continues to outpace its availability. With about 11,000 stalls campus-wide, UW–Madison has the fewest stalls per capita in the Big Ten. At any one time, about 200 employees are on waiting lists for annual parking assignments, a problem that is expected to worsen as new building projects and ramp construction temporarily eliminate parking stalls over the next five years.

The bus passes will be similar to those currently used by UW–Madison students.

The cost to the university and the hospital is $687,667, much of which will be paid using a series of parking permit fee increases announced in April. The Hospital will pay the portion of the costs attributed to its staff.