ASUCSD MOVES plans to replace our quarterly bus stickers with microchips in student ID cards by the end of February. Despite eliminating the need for students to get new bus stickers every quarter and providing some other long-term conveniences for students, this apparent innovation seems like a waste of time and money.

Although the university loves to seem as technologically advanced as possible,  replacing the entire student population’s ID cards with more expensive versions seems like an inefficient use of already stretched resources.  Because the university requires every student to pay a $50 transportation fee for a Triton U-Pass, it would be much simpler and cost-efficient to revert to a yearly sticker distribution rather than to implement another major change that would be nothing but an immediate inconvenience.

The university could even take this a step further and dispense with bus stickers entirely. Simply having valid UCSD ID cards could serve the purpose of bus stickers without the waste of additional resources. Although this might not keep a few straggling alumni from cashing in on free bus rides after they stop paying fees, it would eliminate the issue of quarterly sticker distribution. The cost of moochers seems like a smaller price than the cost of replacing every student’s cards with microchipped versions. In fact, implementing this plan could cause a bigger issue if some students decided to let their friends use their old IDs at on-campus events. There would definitely be an overlap when students transition to the new IDs, and having old and new student IDs in circulation at the same time would be simply chaotic.