In an effort to alleviate the issue of overcrowded parking and help the environment, Associated Students of Diablo Valley College President, Kevin Zhang, is working on making bus transit free for Diablo Valley College students.

Zhang and ASDVC environmental officer, Dennis Xui, are working with the DVC College Council Environmental Sustainability Committee to draft the free-ride proposal in collaboration with County Connection, the bus system that serves central Contra Costa County.

According to Zhang some of the challenges are figuring out what type of partnership they want to have, whether they will offer the service to all students or just some, whether they want to offer the service for all bus routes or only some and ultimately what the cost of the program would be.

In order to pay for the free rides Zhang says there may be a fee imposed on students but to do this will require a majority vote from students.

Santa Rosa Junior college runs a similar program for their students. SRJC students ride free by showing their student ID cards. Zhang wants to mimic that program.

Zhang plans to combine internal surveys with relevant data shared from County Connection to create the proposal.

Writing via email, Zhang said Environmental Sustainability Committee member David Haggerty, who is also a campus administrator, is studying several models for providing subsidized transportation to students in the Contra Costa Community College District.

Haggerty will be making a presentation about his findings later in the semester to the 4CD Chancellor’s Cabinet.

Last semester Zhang presented the idea to College Council in order to see if they could help in any way but he is not moving forward with them until he has a proposal prepared in partnership with the Environmental Sustainability Committee.

Zhang and the committee are also looking for more feedback from students.

Communications major, Shannon Dare, thinks, “It’s an awesome idea.”

While Dare believes it will help with parking she also feels most students who drive, drive for a reason.

“Well, for me, I carry a bunch of stuff and if there was a sudden influx of people on the bus it might be kind of hard or take longer and I also have to go to work so it would be easier to have a car to get me from school to work,” said Dare.

For that reason, she won’t be taking the bus, “but I hope others do because I think it will definitely help the planet.”

Nathaniel Armen, a business major who lives in Berkeley, believes it is a matter of demographics and it will affect students depending on where they live. Armen says, “for me, it would not be time efficient.”

The survey ASDVC wants more students to participate in can be found here:https://goo.gl/forms/DVPnD1gTzbad8Cuv2.