Student input into the future of a Transportation Services
program utilized more than a million times each year by the UCLA
community is limited to the voices of two.
UCLA Transportation Services may redesign the campus shuttle
routes next year, which could shorten waiting time but lengthen
walking time between stops.
The final decision is pending approval of the Transportation
Services Advisory Board, a campus group of students and faculty
with whom transportation consults, said Director of Transportation
Services Renee Fortier. Transportation Services will present to the
board early this month.
Some students question whether the approval of the two student
representatives on the advisory board qualifies as adequate student
consultation.
Some said transportation should give them more input into the
process.
But Fortier said student input was considered.
“Students are on the Transportation Advisory Board and are
a part of that review process,” Fortier said.
She added that transportation had also conducted a survey
earlier this year which identified the most frequently used
stops.
The Wilshire Center, which accounts for over 50 percent of all
campus shuttle boardings, will be serviced by an express shuttle
that will only stop at the Neuropsychiatric Institute building and
on Charles Young Drive North, said Fortier.
A new stop will be added at the Weyburn Terrace Graduate Student
Housing area, and some less frequently used stops along the main
campus route will be eliminated.
But Fortier would not specify which stops will be eliminated, or
exactly what the proposed route changes are, despite numerous
requests for this information.
“The story really is a little premature,” Fortier
said. “We are still in the process of finalizing what the
stops will be and what the effective dates will be.”
She added transportation will publish an ad in the Daily Bruin
detailing the changes once the decision is finalized.
The campus shuttle will cost
Transportation Services an estimated $2.3 million for the
2003-2004 fiscal year, Fortier said. Transportation spends about
$30 million on various programs each year.
For comparison, transportation will spend an estimated $800,000
on BruinGo!, the campus program that subsidizes the fares of
BruinCard holders when they ride certain bus lines.
Transportation made a small change to one of the routes already
this year, when the main campus shuttle route was diverted to make
a left turn on Kinross Avenue instead of Wilshire Boulevard when
heading north from the Wilshire Center.
Shuttle drivers said making a left at Kinross instead of
Wilshire saved an average of 5 to 10 minutes each round-trip, and
the decision to change the route was made for time and efficiency
reasons.