University Transit System and University Parking and Transportation officials discussed new bus route proposals Tuesday night. The new routes, which according to these officials will go into effect at the end of the coming summer term, will attempt to better service on-Grounds housing residents, albeit at the cost of reduced off-Grounds service.
Rebecca White, director of University Parking and Transportation, said changes are afoot for the transit system. Instead of looping the Barracks Road Shopping Center via Millmont Street, for example, UTS will turn around at the south end of Barracks and return to Grounds past the Copeley and Faulkner residences. White added that UTS return service to Faulkner and Copeley after 6:30 p.m. will be reinstated as part of the route changes.
Another addition to the UTS routes will involve the Lambeth Field Apartments?.
Currently, according to White, UTS provides a bus from Lambeth to Grounds, but not one from Grounds to Lambeth. The route changes, she said, will rectify this situation.
"It basically provides a two-way trip, just like Faulkner and Copeley," White said.
According to UTS Transportation Demand Manager Mike Goddard, the modified Blue and Orange routes will service Hereford College at three new stops.
"There are a lot of people living in Hereford, and they are building new dorms there," Goddard said. "A great majority are going to be first-year students who don't have cars, and it's important for us to provide them with transit alternatives."?
To make these changes, however, certain other services currently offered by UTS must be discontinued.
"To make these changes we had to pull service out of certain corridors," White said. "The proposals pull service off of Alderman Road north of McCormick and Ivy Road, and Colonnade Drive."
The new UTS routes also will no longer serve select off-Grounds residences and commercial areas, including University Heights.
"We would like to encourage people to live on Grounds as opposed to off Grounds," Goddard said.?
For some U-Heights residents, this change is not welcome?.
"It affects me and other residents substantially, especially since so many of us rely on [this service] to get back and forth to the University," U-Heights resident Bryan Campbell said, adding that students will not be the only ones affected by the proposed changes.
"I know undergraduates rely on it but I'm also thinking of faculty, staff and international students who have no access to a car," Campbell noted. "I think all those groups are affected."?
Campbell also explained that the only remaining alternative for U-Heights residents is to drive to John Paul Jones Arena and catch the bus servicing that area.
"Ultimately I can accept this and try to make an adjustment, but I would like for there to have been service at U-Heights," Campbell said.
UTS officials, however, emphasized that the changes -- though eliminating bus service for some students -- must be made to better serve the majority of University students. White maintained that since the routes were last changed, several problems have presented themselves, some of which have just come about as a result of new housing construction.
"One of the most glaring problems was that we were not serving Hereford College or [the] new Alderman Road dorms that are currently being built," White said. "And there were also other dorm areas that were underserved like Lambeth, Faulkner [and] Copeley."
Goddard also noted the tardiness of buses is another serious problem that will be addressed by the new routes.
"We were having trouble with our routes getting behind schedule, and that was one of the original things that brought us to look at them again," Goddard said, adding that the Charlottesville area rush hour was determined to be the main cause of the problem. "We prefer to run a service where people know when the buses are going to come and that was not a possibility with changes in traffic," he said.
According to White, the proposed changes have been discussed thoroughly and will officially go into effect Aug. 11?. As they are still in proposal form, however, the University will continue to collect input in the meantime.
When the changes are finalized, students will be immediately notified, Goddard added.
"We will be advertising through e-mails and on our stops," he said. "Student Council will be getting the word out as well; it should be a media blitz when it happens"
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