Designed to increase sustainable travel for students across the Washington, D.C., region, this program will use ridership data and feedback to inform future planning related to sustainable and affordable transportation options near the university’s campuses and in the surrounding areas.
Program Details
Based on Feedback from students in previous years, the Hoya Transit program will provide a monthly credit, rather than a one time deposit each semester to up to 3,200 students for each of the fall 2024 and spring 2025 semesters, to access the Washington, DC, region via transit within the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) system and select regional transit partners. Full-time undergraduate, graduate and professional students from all campuses may apply for the program.
The $50 monthly credit will be applied to a SmarTrip account (new window), to be used toward the standard pay-as-you-go transit. Any unused funds will expire at the end of each month, but students will receive a refresh each month. All funds need to be claimed by tapping your transit card at a WMATA terminal by the 15th of each month.
Enrollment
Students who are interested in participating in this program for the spring 2025 semester should complete the spring 2025 participation request form (new window) no later than 5 p.m. ET on Friday, January 3, 2025.
The funds deposit process is automated by WMATA on the first day of the month, which means that missing the enrollment deadline of January 15th would result in funds not being deposited until March 1st.
The WMATA system stores the funds autoload data for a specific SmarTrip card only at stations where the card has been tapped previously. If your initial tap was at a station where you have not been before, then it should now be captured in the system, and you can tap a second time at that same station to receive the funds autoload.
The program has been adopted for the 2024-2025 academic year. Full-time students will have the opportunity to express interest to enroll for the fall and spring semesters.
Any program funds that are provided that are unused by the end of the academic year will be automatically returned to the university on May 31, 2025, and will no longer be accessible to students.
No personally identifiable information will be shared with the university by WMATA, nor will the university have access to individual account information. All ridership data provided to the university for analysis will be anonymized.
To respond to student input for the university to consider providing more support for mass transit. The purpose of the program is to gauge student interest and ridership on WMATA transportation during the academic year. The university will be seeking student feedback on the structure throughout the program. In order to determine how best to support our student populations, the university hopes to gather data and feedback related to overall ridership, transit type, trip duration, frequency and geographic area. The data and student feedback gathered will be used to inform university public transportation options and offerings in the future.
WMATA’s U-Pass program is not a flexible opt-in or opt-out program based on individual student interest. Student leadership has conveyed a significant desire on behalf of the student body to participate in a public transit program, such as U-Pass. However, we have very little data related to actual student ridership and use of the WMATA transit system. This program aims to help determine which transportation options and offerings are best suited to our student population, based on actual ridership data and student feedback.
An active SmarTrip account is required in order to receive the funds. Selected participants who do not already have an active SmarTrip account will be able to create an account during the enrollment process.
Funds are deposited by WMATA on the first of each month. Enrollment must be completed in the WMATA system by the 18th of the month in order to receive the funds for the following month. For example, enrollment must be completed by January 15th in order for the funds to be available on February 1st.
Full-time designation is defined as being enrolled in 12+ credit hours for undergraduate students and 9+ credit hours for graduate or professional students, regardless of the time of day or days of the week that you attend classes.
