New additions made to campus transportation

Students will have one more option for campus transportation when fall classes start later this month, as IU enters the second year of a three-year phase-in universal bus plan.\nAccess to a stadium-to-campus shuttle will be added to services already available: Bloomington Transit and a late-night shuttle service. All will be available with a student ID and are funded by a $27.66 per semester transportation fee.\nFull implementation of universal service could cost students twice that per semester, officials say.\nLast year students were charged about $21 per semester for the first phase of universal service, which provided access to Bloomington Transit.\nJim Hosler, director of the campus bus service, said the price increase covers inflation, salary and fuel increases and the costs of free access, which include lower collected fares and fewer bus passes purchased.\nNo additional routes will be added, but more buses will run the stadium-to-campus express route -- five as opposed to last year's three, Hosler said. Buses should come by every five minutes.\nTransportation committee members had considered three options for the upcoming year -- leave the service the same, add a stadium-to-campus route or fully implement universal access.\nThe universal campus bus service was initially proposed by the IU Student Association.\nBloomington Transit General Manager Lew May joined others in praising the universal bus system as a way to increase students' mobility and provide a solution to a lack of parking on campus.\n"Its a great way to leave your car behind, to avoid the parking hassles and maybe save the price of a parking sticker," May said.\nThe $27.66 transportation fee will generate about $1.9 million this year.\nHosler said every dollar goes toward bus operations: about $570,000 to Bloomington Transit, $72,000 for a late-night shuttle service and the rest goes toward the campus bus service, of which the transportation fee funds about half.\nThe campus service's total budget is about $3.3 million.\nFormer IU Student Association President Meredith Suffron told the IDS last April that the full universal plan would have cost each student about $40 per semester -- if all Bloomington and IU services remained the same.\nBut if the University wants to keep the existing level of service or add service, it might have to double the existing fee or charge more, Hosler said.\nHosler said the original $35 fee proposed by IUSA was low to start with.\nWhile ridership on the campus bus service went down last year, Bloomington Transit saw record ridership, May said. BT added eight buses last year to a fleet of 33.\nThe campus service has to rely more heavily on the transportation fee, since funds from bus pass sales were down 28 percent last year, and fares decreased 40 percent, Hosler said. Among other factors, he said, giving a discount of the amount of the transportation fee to students who purchase bus passes caused the drops.\nLynn Coyne, assistant vice president for real estate and economic development, said the University will hire a consultant to do an operations analysis this year to determine the best way to implement universal service.\n"The next step will be to initiate a route-study to analyze campus bus routes (and) Bloomington Transit routes to realize a higher level of efficiency and hopefully reduce costs," he said.