There may be no such thing as a free lunch, but students can at least get a free ride.
Well, sort of.
Thanks to a portion of their incidental fee monies, University students can use the Lane Transit District bus system with a flash of a student ID card. The fee for the regular student body is $6.80 per term, while law school students — who are on a semester schedule — pay $10.31 per term.
University faculty and staff also ride for free thanks to parking revenue.
“We try to make sure everyone is aware of [the service],” parking and transportation manager for the Office of Public Safety Rand Stamm said. “We have such a car-oriented culture and trying to get people to change that mindset is a tough one.”
Stamm works closely with LTD to promote the free bus system, and a spokesman at the transit agency said there will be very few changes to the program this year. Andy Vobora, LTD’s service planning and marketing manager, said that both parties — LTD and the University — benefit from the Group Pass program. The University administration doesn’t have to spend a lot of money providing parking for students and the revenue helps LTD when designing new programs.
Although Vobora mentioned no changes for this year, the transit agency is looking ahead to future route restructuring and he said that students should have input on those changes. There are two avenues to offer feedback, he said: An Oct. 12 open house at the LTD downtown center, located in the 1100 block of Willamette Street, and a Web site at www.ltd.org. Click on the “comprehensive service re-design” link to check out the proposals.
Vobora said that LTD is also looking into the viability of a shuttle system from campus to places such as downtown or the Valley River Center.
One visible change that LTD has made regionwide this year is not mailing riders’ guides, which contain schedules, fares and maps, to Lane County residents. The cost-cutting measure was due to the fact that retention of the guides was lower than expected when people were surveyed on usage, Vobora said.
Riders can pick up the guides on any bus, at the Eugene downtown station or at LTD’s headquarters in Glenwood.
Although this won’t be a problem right away with classes just starting, Vobora said LTD has found that a small percentage of residents continue to ride the bus for free even after they are no longer students. The fraud rate was about 4 percent based on 852 records.
Surprisingly, he pointed out, the fraud rate among former University faculty and staff was at almost 13 percent. Stamm said that OPS is looking at a system that would require those who leaving University employment to turn in their ID cards with their keys, if they have been issued a set. OPS is also working with each department to get the ID cards back during exit interviews, he said.
One enrolled student, senior Kate Downing, said that she rides the bus to school every day because she doesn’t own a car. Downing said the system works well, but she would like to see improvements in weekend service.
“There’s no bus service, especially on Sundays until 9 a.m. or so,” Downing said. “I know a lot of people who have to be to work at 7 or 8 in the morning and it’s inconvenient.”
Despite that hassle, Downing is not ready to join the mass of automobile drivers making their way to the University.
“I definitely wouldn’t want to give up the student pass system,” she said.