This is an open letter to the IU administration and student body:\nI strongly suspect a majority of students feel as I do that the Universal Bus Pass/Transportation Fee, as planned and implemented, is a foolish proposal. We the students were told the plan would be based on successful operations such as the one at the University of Colorado at Boulder. One look at the UC-Boulder bus Web site and the IU bus Web site makes the difference clear and laughable. (Boulder students even get free airport shuttles to Denver!)\nWe are currently being charged the same as UC-Boulder students for an inferior service. Now we are expected to cough up three times that much for a still inferior service! What a joke! Students who live off campus or own property here in town are already being subjected to property taxes to pay for the Bloomington Transit's upkeep; now they must pay more through IU. Students who live outside the service area of Bloomington Transit have still not received their promised refunds.\nObviously, IU and Bloomington Transit see the students as a cash cow to be exploited at their leisure. While I fully support the notion of public transportation, the current implementation of the IU and Bloomington Transit merger is ill-conceived and should be scrapped. Suggestions that this plan will ease traffic problems and increase student safety are ludicrous, when students still must pay for rides and buses not always accessible.\nOperations to merge the transportation systems should be stopped immediately and the IU Student Transportation Fee revoked while the administrators involved set out a realistic and effective plan. This new plan should be competitive in price with the UC-Boulder plan and offer students who must drive from out of town real incentives to ride, coupled with their parking permits (like free rides from the stadium). Replacing the behemoth diesel-belchers that run around two-thirds empty at most hours with speedier "airport shuttle" type busses would also improve service.
Joshua Wells\nGraduate Student
