Students were faced with one- to two-hour wait times when collecting their U-Pass this academic year.
In an email from UTMSU on August 26, students were advised of forthcoming changes to the U-Pass pick up process to “ensure that [students] have a better experience”.
Students reported wait times ranging from 20 minutes to two hours while picking up U-Passes, which were distributed from August 28 to September 11. New this year, students were required to enter information electronically such as their emails, city of residence, and their phone numbers on a spreadsheet. In previous years, students wrote out their contact information when picking up their U-Pass.
“We changed the way we record information from pen and paper tracking to digital tracking sheets in order to better meet our tracking requirements,” said Ebi Agbeyegbe, UTMSU president, who explained the information is used to track U-Passes for both MiWay and UTMSU.
“I had to wait two hours in line and I had to miss a class because I didn’t want to wait in line the next day,” said Jaclyn Del Rosso, a third-year criminology and English student who told The Medium that her wait time was significantly longer than last year.
Nicole Bernadowitsch, a third-year ancient history student, also saw a significant increase in the length of time it took for her to pick up her U-Pass.
“Last year, I waited in line for about 20 minutes, but this year it was more like two hours,” she said.
According to Agbeyegbe, over 11,000 students have picked up their U-Pass.
