Overcrowding, slowness continue to plague intercampus buses

If you frequently traveled between City and East campuses last year, you probably ran into some problems.

Last year, the 24 Holdrege StarTran bus was notorious for being packed, sometimes slow and generally unreliable. More than a few students were left at the curb at one point or another.

The conflict had the most to do with some strange scheduling, said Dan Carpenter, director of Parking and Transit Services at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

"That was a result of a couple of classes where the professor allowed 20 to 40 extra students, so there were 60 or so students getting out of class at around the same time, and it was just overloading the buses," Carpenter said.

The problem, he said, was acknowledged and dealt with.

"I was contacted with some complaints that people had been left behind, so we put on a UNL bus to supplement and help alleviate the overload," he said.

Carpenter said the supplemental bus seems to have taken care of the problem.
"This semester, I haven't heard a peep," he said.

But Anil Lodhia, head of the Association of Students of the University of Nebraska's Committee for Fees Allocation, said there's still some difficulty.

After the problems last year, he said, StarTran has been reviewing some routes and stops, trying to develop a more efficient system.

"There were some problems with buses waiting at certain stops too long and too short at others," Lodhia said. "And there are some bad ones where the traffic is a pain."

But StarTran and the university aren't the only ones to blame. Some of the problem comes from students who are new to the bus system, Lodhia said.

"I think it's a problem that happens every year, at least at first," he said. "It usually dies down after a couple of weeks. They're just confused at first about when to get on the bus and where each bus goes, mostly."

Students unfamiliar with the bus system account for some of the conflict, Lodhia said, but there's more to it.

"For example, I tried to take the bus today from East Campus, and it was full," he said. "We're definitely taking a look into it."

Lodhia said he's very pleased with the progress that's been made so far and the steps being taken to better the bus system, but more can still be done.

"I'm very pleased," Lodhia said. "But we are taking a look into improvements, trying to find the most productive ways we can meet student demand."

jacegatzemeyer@dailynebraskan.com