The Lane Transit District needs help. Even before the articles in the Emerald appeared Friday Oct. 14 and 21 regarding the proposed line cuts and additional student fees, I noticed problems in the LTD bus system’s reliability and efficiency. When I read the articles, it came as a shock that LTD was deleting more routes. Even more issues arise when LTD can’t even seem to do its job. It’s understandable that the bus system lacks proper funding. Problems with decreased taxes, increased demand of public transportation and rising gas prices all are legitimate excuses for restructuring. However, it does not seem like a good idea to cut routes with high student traffic and then request money from the ASUO to revise the routes that are still running.
I’ve never personally had a bad experience with LTD, besides having to shuffle my schedule to accommodate limited bus times. I completely rely on the bus to get me to school every day and haven’t missed it yet. Unfortunately, I often end up watching the bus drive by a later stop where my friends wait to be picked up due to the vehicle being “too full.” They are forced to walk or drive to make it to class on time. Spontaneous driving results in paying for a meter or unnecessarily parking in two-hour residential zones. But there are few options when specific bus lines only run once an hour. What should students do? Abandon the hope of reliable public transportation and pollute our air instead with individual cars? Get stuck walking or riding a bike to school in the pouring rain and arrive 10 minutes late? For the people who live too far away and can’t afford cars, the latter is their only choice. More students are forced to live farther away from campus thanks to the increased demand for student housing. It’s not fair to make students pay more money while specifically deleting routes they use.
Public transportation in Eugene should be striving for more accessibility, not less, as is the case with the lack of nighttime transportation. As a freshman, it was frustrating being unable to go to Valley River Center to see a movie at night because the last bus left the mall at 9:24 p.m. This year I never even consider walking home alone at night, so problems arise when my schoolwork forces me to remain on campus after 7 p.m. – when the last bus on my route departs. The LTD should at least consider implementing routes that run after 11 p.m. in order to provide safe transportation alternatives for college students, especially on the weekends.
Because it would still cost more money to add new routes, I think the obvious solution is to enforce bus drivers’ reliability. It’s frustrating when one doesn’t know what will occur while waiting for the bus. The committee deciding these issues needs to consider more thorough ways to restructure the system. Not all of us want to pay $60,000 to expand route 79x, one of the routes expected to take on the riders of cut route 79. I do give LTD credit for beginning to restructure a route system that has become inefficient. They are adjusting for the future, but presently the situation is grim. Whichever way you spin it, students either have to pay more fees, face route cuts, or both.
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