It may not help with the morning walk of shame, but UTS is looking to implement weekend late-night bus service for partygoers and other night owls by the end of the semester. The additional night-time service would be the latest in a series of expansions by UTS which have decreased wait times from 20 to 12 minutes at night.
The implementation of new services, however, has created a number of logistical headaches for both passengers and drivers. The Grounds Loop, for example, has undergone extensive changes over the past four years, resulting in a shorter route and decreased frequency of service, from 15 to 30 minutes.
University Parking and Transportation Director Rebecca White said the Grounds Loop has struggled to strike a balance between servicing students near Stadium Road to Central Grounds and shuttling students across McCormick Road during class changes. To help address such concerns, UTS has distributed a survey to selected parking-permit holders to evaluate the current placement of bus stops, which could be relocated as soon as next semester.
The addition of late-night service, however, could further complicate matters, said Clayton Powers, parking and transportation co-chair of the Student Council Student Life Committee.
"If we were to add three hours, three days a week, that would throw everything out of whack," Powers said. "It's going to take a while for the bus service to get back on track."
Unlike daytime bus service, which is operated three-quarters of the time by student drivers, late-night service would be operated by contracted employees, White said.
Pending final approval by University Parking and Transportation and Student Council, UTS will conduct a month-long trial run of its new late-night route later this semester on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights between 12:20 and 3:20 a.m. Details of the route have yet to be finalized and could include two to three busses that run along a single loop or individual busses on interconnecting routes. Stops would be serviced every 20 to 30 minutes, depending on the exact number of busses in use and the availability of a spare bus, should one be forced out of service.
Last semester, Council endorsed the late-night route after collecting signatures from interested students and has offered to pay the $5,000 operating costs of a trial run for late-night service this semester.
If the route is successful, White said it could become a permanent addition next fall, funded through a planned increase in the comprehensive transportation fee charged to all students.
Should the service not prove to be as popular as anticipated, White said the funds earmarked for the route could be diverted toward other projects, such as purchasing more environmentally-friendly biodiesel fuel.
Another test program tentatively scheduled for next fall would allow University students, staff and faculty members to ride Charlottesville Transit Service busses for free by presenting a University ID to bus drivers. Currently, to ride CTS busses without charge, students must obtain a single-use transfer pass from a UTS bus driver, a cumbersome process which White suggests has reduced demand for the service.
To cover the added cost of ridership from University members, White said an increase in the comprehensive transportation fee likely would be necessary for the 2006-2007 school year. Until then, CTS Manager Bill Watterson said the City is exploring grant opportunities to fund the program if there is sufficient demand.
Similarly, Watterson acknowledged timing and overlap issues between the City's trolley service and the University's Grounds Loop and Blue Route, all of which service the Alderman Road-McCormick Road corridor. Along with Route 7, which services Rt. 29 into Albemarle County, the Downtown Trolley is one of the most heavily utilized offerings in the City's transit system. Since its creation in 2000, trolley ridership has nearly doubled to more than 300,000 passengers per year.
In addition to route and timing issues, recent increases in traffic congestion and passenger overcrowding have caused busses to fall behind schedule, according to Assistant City Transit Manager Charles Petty.
"I think there's a fair degree of local frustration with traffic congestion," Petty said. "It really hasn't been that many years since you could get easily around Charlottesville."
With a new transit center on the east end of the Downtown Mall scheduled for completion next summer, the City has commissioned a study of its current bus service, due out in March, at which point individual changes will have to be approved by City Council following a public comment period.
Any major overhauls included in the proposal, such as making Rt. 29 and Main St. a more-heavily serviced system backbone, likely would be put on hold until completion of the downtown transit center. Minor tweaks, however, could go into effect immediately to improve the reliability of current bus schedules.
"The primary focus of looking at the routes is to try to make them run on schedule," Watterson said. "There is a possibility of significantly altering routes."
With the City strapped for cash, most changes likely will have to be revenue-neutral, involving mainly organizational changes while leaving open the possibility for more costly system upgrades in the future.
"We want to do things that help us progress along a path of improvement," Watterson said.
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