Students question new shuttle routes

Three months after Transportation Services changed campus
shuttle routes, unhappy students are wondering if planners
considered student concerns in their decisions, while officials
maintain the department has been responsive to student input in
other areas of on-campus transportation.

The changes in the shuttle routes included eliminating the
Ackerman Express shuttle and creating a Wilshire Express route, as
well as a complete redesign of the main campus shuttle route.

Renee Fortier, director of Transportation Services, cited the
desire to create less waiting time for students between buses and
the need to add a new stop at the Weyburn Terrace Graduate Student
Housing, which opens this fall, as the reasons behind the
change.

But some students are unhappy with the changes, and the majority
of the complaints have been about stops which were eliminated,
especially a stop located by Ackerman Student Union. About 1.2
million rides are taken on the shuttles each year, predominantly by
undergraduates.

Queen Thach, a fourth-year psycho- biology student, said she
liked that the old routes had more stops than the new ones, but did
prefer the speediness of one of the new routes.

Because the new Wilshire route only has three stops, it takes
slightly less time to get to school from the Wilshire Center, an
area located south of the corner of Wilshire and Midvale.

The Wilshire Center was previously serviced by the main campus
shuttle, which had five stops on the northbound route and six on
the southbound route.

But Thach said she preferred the old main campus route because
it went to Wilshire in addition to more campus destinations.

The only on-campus stop on the new Wilshire Center shuttle is by
parking Lot 2; whereas the old campus shuttle stopped at several
locations in North Campus.

During the planning process, Fortier would not share details of
the route changes until they were finalized. Some students said
this seemed to eliminate any opportunity for student input into the
planning process.

The secrecy behind the route change left many students asking
how “”mdash; and if “”mdash; Transportation Services considered
student opinion in their decisions.

Fortier cited a two-day shuttle ridership survey the department
conducted in January, which recorded where riders were boarding and
exiting the bus, and a consultation with the Transportation
Services Advisory Board, a group on which one undergraduate and one
graduate student representative serve, as the connections between
students and the department.

Still, Joe Vardner, the undergraduate representative on the
board, said that Transportation Services did not give as much
opportunity for input as city and state transportation agencies
typically do.

Sam Corbett, manager of planning and analysis for Transportation
Services, said town hall meetings, public workshops, community
meetings, and other organized public forums are a big part of the
transportation planning process of government agencies. He has
worked with transportation departments at other universities as
well as with government agencies around the country.

Corbett said the universities he worked at previously operated
more “autonomously” than other governmental agencies,
but added he has not been at UCLA long enough to comment on UCLA
Transportation Services.

In city and state agencies, many of the people who make
decisions are elected officials. The people who are affected by
these decisions may have more sway because officials are often
concerned with re-election.

On the university level, students usually do not have such
influence.

Vardner also believes finances played a role in the
decision-making process for Transportation Services.

“Transportation Services, like housing, is under the
business wing of UCLA,” Vardner said. “Money is
definitely much more of a factor than it is in some other
departments, such as academic departments.”

The shuttles will cost Transportation Services $2.1 million to
operate for the 2004-2005 year, compared to about $2.3 million last
year.

The shuttles, like all transportation programs, are funded
entirely by revenue from parking permits and parking programs.
Transportation Services does not receive any money from the state,
and is not directly affected by the budget cuts.

Vardner said unlike academic departments that have specific
educational goals in mind when changing their programs or services,
the transportation department has only one general requirement: to
handle transportation.

Fortier agreed that money was a factor in the shuttle
changes.

“It is never an easy thing to try to reduce
budgets,” she said in an e-mail. “The new routes
provide service to all areas of campus within a couple of
blocks’ walk, while allowing parking fees to remain at
previously-projected levels.”

“In this time of great budgetary constraints it would have
not been the right thing to do to make no attempt to streamline
service and thus to impact parking fees; rather this is the time
for all campus units to make services more cost-effective,”
Fortier added.

While money may be a critical factor for some departments on
campus, other departments, both at UCLA and other universities,
choose to make public opinion a priority.

For example, the dorms issue questionnaires every quarter which
ask students to rate various aspects of housing, including dorm
life and dorm food.

Transportation departments at other universities also
incorporate community input. The UC’s Santa Barbara campus,
for example, held a public forum about a proposal to start charging
people for weekend parking.

While some were unhappy with lack of student input regarding
changes in the shuttle routes at UCLA, others have been pleased
with the department’s efforts in another project: developing
a bicycle master plan.

After facing sharp criticism for failing to include any
provisions for bicyclists in their portion of the
university’s Long Range Development Plan ““ which guides
the school’s development over a ten year period ““
Transportation Services agreed to work with a campus bicyclist
committee to make bicycling to campus a more viable option for
students and staff.

Todd Nelson, last year’s president of the Bicycle Advocacy
Committee, said in March 2003 he was not satisfied with the rate of
progress in developing the plan.

But since then, James Black, new president of the bike group,
said progress has improved. Black said he believes there will be
better communication between his group and Transportation Services
through having monthly meetings. He also said the department seemed
to be incorporating the bike group’s recommendations.

Transportation Services recently finished getting student input
on the bicycle plans through another venue ““ a MyUCLA
survey.

The bike survey asked for student input on bicycle amenities the
department was exploring, such as bike lockers or discounted access
to shower facilities.

Corbett said the department will definitely use the survey as
they evaluate these amenities.

Transportation will probably conduct a similar, opinion-based
survey of the campus shuttles this year, which will ask students
how the shuttles can be improved, Corbett said.

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