Video by Nora Hurchick.

When Matt Felix moved to the South Side, he didn’t imagine himself walking to and from campus every day.

Other schools in the Pittsburgh area provide free or discounted public transportation, but Duquesne University students don’t have that luxury. While a $2.50 fare may not seem like much, it adds up to a heftier fee after a while. For Felix, working in Oakland and getting to places he can’t walk to can cost a lot.

“I’ll spend at least $1,000 on my bus pass this year. It’s really expensive, but it’s still less expensive than having a car on campus,” he said.

The University of Pittsburgh, Carnegie Mellon University, and Chatham University all provide free public transportation with a valid student ID. Students just have to scan their IDs on the bus and are able to ride. Point Park University allows students to use Port Authority transportation at a reduced fare of $1 per ride. Duquesne has no contract with Port Authority for free or discounted bus fare.

According to College Board, students will spend between $807 and $1,401 on transportation per year. Most college students don’t have that much extra money in their budget to spare.

Duquesne does provide two alternative forms of transportation, but they only go to a limited number of places. A pass for the South Side shuttle runs at $100 per semester. It makes stops along E. Carson St. and runs from 7a.m. to 10p.m. on weekdays only. For weekend transportation, there is the loop bus is a free option that takes students to South Side, Waterfront, and Oakland. The loop buses run from 5p.m. to 1a.m. on Friday and Saturday nights.

The addition of the South Side shuttle and the free loop buses allows students to get around the area a little easier, but they have to pay an additional fare to get anywhere that those services don’t cover. This can make it complicated for students to do many things, like go grocery shopping, visit friends or visit places to complete school assignments.

Many students try to fill the transportation void by bringing cars to campus. The increase of cars on campus has caused parking spaces to become increasingly hard to find. Parking on campus comes with a high cost of its own too. A parking pass at Duquesne costs $661 for the academic year and with the price of gas, students still will end up paying even more than that to have a car on campus.

“I’m a bit of a tree hugger myself, but free or discounted bus fare would force less people to take their cars to campus and free up a lot of the parking spaces,” Felix said.

Even with eliminating the service of the free loop buses, students may have to face a tuition increase in order to have public transportation included. However, if students are already paying an additional fare to use the public bus system, the tuition increase may end up being less than the current additional expense costs.

“I would take a tuition increase because I know I would be paying less through Duquesne than I am now. If the service was available, students would definitely use it,” Felix said.