Dear Purdue Board of Trustees,

Purdue affiliates need reliable transportation to function in Greater Lafayette. Approximately 60% of Purdue’s student body lives off campus, exacerbated by the housing crisis observed by the Area Plan Commission1. Insufficient parking space and traffic congestion limits personal transportation options2. In 1999, Purdue contracted CityBus to resolve these exact issues by completely subsidizing bus passes for all Purdue affiliates3.

Yet, Purdue has alarmingly curtailed their relationship with CityBus. Instead of providing free CityBus passes in fall 2025—breaking Purdue’s 25 year long custom—Purdue only subsidized $50 per pass for passes purchased in the first two weeks (up to 10,000), leaving CityBus to pay the discount for any passes bought thereafter4 (Purdue still describes the passes as “Purdue-discounted,” despite CityBus now providing the discount). While Purdue’s pledge to provide affordable transportation to students falls apart after only one year5, CityBus continues to serve the Purdue University area to its best ability6. Purdue now prioritizes developing a new, exclusively on-campus bus system, which is currently much more limited than the previous campus loops, leaving CityBus to supplement all other student transit needs.

Purdue’s decision to discount CityBus passes instead of fully subsidize them undermines Purdue affiliates’ access to CityBus. In fall 2024, 16,930 Purdue affiliates claimed CityBus semester passes by October 16th7. CityBus COO Bryan Walck shared that in fall 2025, only 2,829 CityBus semester passes were purchased by September 26th, roughly an 83% drop; roughly 1,5000 of those passes were sold after the two-week promotional period, costing CityBus $75,000.

Even so, Purdue affiliates constitute a vast majority of CityBus’s fall 2025 semester pass purchasers. According to Bryan Walck, non-Purdue-affiliated riders bought only 248 semester-length passes by September 26th, comprising only 8% of the total number of semester-length passes sold. CityBus must be paid what it is owed for Purdue’s immense service demands. Purdue, however, refuses to take any accountability for the transportation issues in Greater Lafayette. For example, Purdue procurement staff at the SP+ listening session on April 16th emphasized that Purdue bears no responsibility for CityBus’s decisions, disregarding our warnings about the damage ending CityBus’s biggest contract could do to the service so many students rely on. Similarly, Purdue Administrative Operations’ October 5th community-wide email describes the “inconvenience presented by this CityBus decision” to discontinue Route 41, completely blaming CityBus without acknowledging Purdue’s role in the situation. Indeed, CityBus now anticipates a 25% service cut in 2026 due to budget gaps, no doubt exacerbated by losing their biggest contractor: Purdue8.

From 970 petition signers9, 724 Purdue affiliates describe what they lose access to without free CityBus passes10:

• campus buildings and labs

• work sites

• groceries, supermarkets, food pantries

• hospitals, pharmacies, medical facilities

• laundromats

• Purdue networking and extra-curricular events

• places of religious worship

• family residences.

Now that Route 41, the only free CityBus route, has been discontinued, it is critical that you provide a solution for off-campus transit for your community. This semester showed that expecting the community to pay $49, much less $62, is not sustainable. Subsidizing 17,000 semester passes—the number of passes claimed in Fall 2024—at the $125 rate would cost $4,250,000 annually, only 2.9% of the $145,000,000 surplus you reported in 202411. On behalf of Purdue University’s affiliates—students, staff, and faculty—we call on you and Purdue Auxiliary Services to subsidize free off-campus transit passes with CityBus in perpetuity. 

Sincerely,

Graduate Rights and Our Wellbeing

References

[1] McBurnett, N., & Fornes, M. (2025, January). 2024 Rental Housing Supplemental Report. The Area Plan Commission of Tippecanoe County. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ESwUEH2hapCmbsEQHNyUJJtzIs7mVu9J/

[2] Mapes, O. (2025, August 28). Purdue says it worked with city amid parking, bus change debate. The Exponent. https://www.purdueexponent.org/city_state/purdue-paid-parking-west-lafayette-citybus/article_60246603-c650-48a9-b871-42498821e5b1.html

[3] Willis, J. M. (2000, July 31). Purdue expands free CityBus rides for faculty, staff, retirees. Purdue News. https://www.purdue.edu/uns/html4ever/0731.Sharp.CityBus.html

[4] Greater Lafayette Public Transportation Corporation, Purdue University. (2025, August 1). MASTER RATE AGREEMENT BETWEEN GREATER LAFAYETTE PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION CORPORATION AND PURDUE UNIVERSITY. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nzIXxMRLhG-RKAVZ9PI6-PQwi36ApSpJ/

[5] Walling, K. (2024, April 29). Purdue pledges to find affordable transportation for students after CityBus fare changes. The Exponent. https://www.purdueexponent.org/campus/purdue-pledges-to-find-affordable-transportation-for-students-after-citybus-fare-changes/article_12879d66-066b-11ef-a2b9-bf40a83aed91.html

[6] Walling, K. (2025, April 4). CityBus to stop running campus routes, pledges to continue serving community. The Exponent. https://www.purdueexponent.org/campus/general_news/purdue-ends-citybus-campus-contract/article_2c6c92e5-d890-4200-9e76-d3a873ec40a4.html

[7] Walling, K. (2024, October 19). CityBus won't be reimbursed for majority of Purdue off-campus passes. The Exponent. https://www.purdueexponent.org/campus/purdue-university-citybus-semester-pass/article_1510494c-8c13-11ef-ab92-f3465e7105a1.html

[8] Goldthorpe, A., & Lambright, B. (2025, November 20). CityBus taking $75,000-plus loss on subsidized student passes, fare increases to come. The Exponent. https://www.purdueexponent.org/city_state/general_news/citybus-purdue-operation-cuts-budgets-routes-student-passes-contracts/article_134e3365-58d1-4780-8af8-c7f63916bff4.html 

[9] GROW. (2025, April 17). 2025 Off-campus Transit Survey. https://forms.gle/47Ur1H6CLo5R8w6k9

[10] GROW. (2025, October 5). GROW Transit Petition Anonymous Comments. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1jdBFfwaNS6-us_X8I9-NtGqt5YVZrSy_/

[11] Schuman, I., & Kemiktarak, S. (2024, August 3). CityBus passes will be subsidized, Purdue nets $145 million surplus. The Exponent. https://www.purdueexponent.org/campus/citybus-passes-will-be-subsidized-purdue-nets-145-million-surplus/article_76b2c09a-51f2-11ef-9c70-071172369162.html

Success

Purdue has agreed to pay $50 of Purdue-affiliated riders’ CityBus semester passes in fall 2025, leaving $49 of the $99 pass to be paid by the individual. The mechanisms for purchasing discounted passes or receiving reimbursements are yet to be announced by Purdue.

Our Demand

• Free transit, full stop. Purdue University will subsidize the complete cost of off-campus CityBus routes for Purdue riders all year round, including during academic breaks.

Campaign Collaborators

• Purdue Graduate Student Government (PGSG)

USE THIS PETITION FORM TO EXPLAIN WHAT YOU LOSE WITHOUT FREE OFF-CAMPUS TRANSIT

Context

• On April 16th, 2025, graduate students (some GROW, some PGSG, some unaffiliated) met Purdue procurement staff (Jessica Robertson, Jayme Baker, Trina Clawson) in an SP+ listening session.

  • The procurement staff admitted that they did not have any plans nor guarantees for off-campus transit at that time. They described on-campus transit with SP+ as "phase 1" while off-campus transit would be some phase after that, despite the fact that this would be a step backward from two decades of Purdue-CityBus transportation contracts. They seemed surprised that we were in favor of CityBus service.

  • Those present explained that we need free off-campus transit to reach our campus labs to teach and work, as well as access essential resources like grocery stores. Personal vehicles are expensive, and parking is severely limited; free CityBus transit mobilizes Purdue riders and reduces traffic congestion, which we greatly need.

  • We also asserted that Purdue can directly subsidize passes for Purdue students even without an agreement from CityBus, meaning there would be no conflict with the SP+ on-campus contract.

  • The procurement staff at the SP+ listening session commented that we were well organized, despite being an assortment of only 10-12 graduate students all together. This raises concerns about Purdue administration's competence, seeing as we had the exact same transit issue one year before.

• On May 10th, GROW hosted the Town Hall for Transit 2, calling together Purdue administration, CityBus, and community members to open up discussion about Purdue's transit situation.

  • Lon Lucas, CityBus's manager of customer experiences, attended online and confirmed that Purdue and CityBus had ongoing negotiations, but could not confirm anything else.

  • None of the invited Purdue staff attended, not even the procurement staff we met at the SP+ listening session.

• On May 20th, PGSG leadership held their own transit listening session.

  • They were also able to confirm that negotiations between Purdue and CityBus were ongoing, but the Board of Trustees were the only ones who could finalize a subsidy for off-campus transit.

  • GROW shared 278 petition comments from Purdue riders stating what they'd lose without free transit, alongside the other attendees concerns.

  • GROW collaborated with attendees of the listening session to develop an informational document and slideshow, then helped canvass their departments about the transit issue.

• A little more than a week later, PGSG secured $10,500 worth of funds, which would be used to reimburse $42 for up to 250 eligible students who paid for summer CityBus passes. There was still no mention of what would happen in the fall.

• Shortly after GROW members emailed procurement staff asking for an update, having noticed that OneCampus still included CityBus information, the August 1st announcement of Purdue's transit subsidy was made.

• No guarantees have been made for subsidizing CityBus for the spring and summer 2026 semesters. GROW continues the fight!

Purdue riders of certain highly-used CityBus off-campus routes would have been required to pay for fares or semester passes because Purdue University chose not to fully subsidize their service.

• CityBus had been paying for Purdue University’s off-campus transit for a number of years. With the housing crisis and more students living off-campus, off-campus bus transit drastically increased. CityBus is at a fiscal cliff and cannot continue to cover off-campus transit at its own expense. CityBus entered negotiations with Purdue at latest in March 2024, and at an impasse, CityBus announced in April 2024 that Purdue riders—students, staff, and faculty—would need to pay for bus fares or semester passes starting in fall 2024. Purdue pledged affordable transit to students and continued negotiations through the summer, but no progress was reported for the majority of the summer. Later, Purdue administration would complain about having little data on ridership, but neglected to survey its population.

• GROW, with the help of GLDSA, organized the Town Hall for Transit to invite decision-makers from Purdue and CityBus to publicize their negotiations, and to answer to the community. The day before the town hall, Purdue administration celebrated $14.5 million in revenue and announced that it would subsidize only $725,00 of off-campus transit costs, such that some students would pay a discounted rate on semester passes ($25 per semester instead of $99). No Purdue riders would have free transit as they used to, and no details were given on implementation. No Purdue representatives attended the town hall to answer questions. Bryan Smith, CityBus CEO, did attend to respond to concerns from the community, offered clarification about CityBus funding, and forewarned about additional opportunities for public comment with CityBus.

• It was revealed that Purdue had planned on subsidizing transit fully behind closed doors, but changed direction and rushed an alternative solution to the Board of Trustees without adequate time for intervention from CityBus. CityBus dragged Purdue back to the negotiation table, where they finally relented and agreed to pay for completely free transit for Purdue riders.

• In their final announcement, Purdue administration stated that they will work toward "a better long-term solution and future vendor contracts for transportation for on and off-campus students," which signals to GROW that this current agreement is subject to being slashed in the future for private transportation investment instead. Therefore, the petition for free off-campus transit will continue to be circulated in defense of what we've won: https://tinyurl.com/petitioncitybus