By Gavin Guffey, Staff Writer

Xavier students have access to new Metro and Lyft opportunities for the Fall 2025 semester.

Students can now receive $2 off Lyft rides to and from campus on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays from 9 p.m. to 3 a.m. All students and staff are eligible for a free Cincinnati Metro pass.

The Metro Ridership Program and Lyft Pass Program are part of a larger initiative for Xavier students to be able to travel off campus, allowing them to experience the night life that Cincinnati has to offer.

“We want you as students to enjoy what you’re doing while you’re on campus, and we want you to experience everything that Cincinnati has,” said Leah Busam-Klenowski, Assistant Vice President for Leadership and Engagement in the Division of Student Affairs. 

Busam-Klenowski, along with others in her division, have been working closely with Student Government Association (SGA) to ensure that students’ off campus needs are being met.

“It is a regular thing that students bring up that they want to improve student transportation resources,” Busam-Klenowski said. 

SGA shares a similar perspective. Senior Philosophy, Politics and the Public major and SGA President, Jake Galvan has been a strong collaborator on the project. 

“This is especially an important issue for first year students, students that maybe don’t have a car yet, but they still want to try and find a way to kind of get around Cincinnati, find all the cool spots,” Galvan said.

The two entities, SGA and the Division of Student Affairs, are no stranger to collaboration on this topic. It has been a constantly evolving project for years now.

“In late 2023 there was some interest among the student government about, how can we bring more transportation opportunities to the campus?” Galvan said. 

Prior to debuting the more recent programs, Xavier has been providing students with the Sunday Shopping Shuttle and an Airport Shuttle.

 “There are some students who don’t have cars, they’re living on campus and they just want access to go get their regular sort of needs met. They want to go to the grocery store, to the drugstore, things like that. And they want an easy way to do that,” Busam-Klenowski said.

It was Metro that originally reached out to Xavier to set up the Metro Ridership Program. Metro is free for Xavier students for the entire fall 2025 semester.

“They’re trying to figure out what kind of investment they need from Xavier to continue to allow us this sort of wide access,” Busam-Klenowski said.

The company wants to gather information regarding usage before continuing with a charged plan. 

“I think we have a really good deal with Metro. This is coming with no charge to the University at all. It’s a completely free service,” Galvan said. 

After these systems had been implemented, there were still questions regarding how one specific piece of the transportation puzzle could be put into place.

“What we wanted to offer students was what we were hearing we still haven’t covered in transportation, late night social options,” Busam-Klenowski said.

She was then put to the task. Busam-Klenowski knew prior to reaching out to Lyft that multiple students wanted discounts, as they have friends at other schools who enjoy the same benefit. She attempted multiple times before getting a response from Lyft about their college discount program. 

“So finally, in the spring [2025] semester, I got responses from Lyft, and at the same time, we got approval through university leadership to get the student activity fee increased to help cover cost for transportation,” she said. This was what allowed SGA and Student Affairs to set up the Lyft discounts.

The next step for SGA and Student Affairs is to continue to analyze usage data from these programs to improve them for students. Busam-Klenowski echoed this, explaining that students being able to explore Cincinnati and its surroundings is their main priority.

“That’s part of being here, is being connected to Cincinnati. So that’s what we’re trying to do” Busam-Klenowski said.