Driving the late night 'drunk bus' an unforgiving position

Every Thursday, Friday and Saturday night, Bloomington Shuttle buses slow to a stop on 7th Street in front of the Indiana Memorial Union. From there, the buses loop around the bars and campus, picking up students and returning them home.\nFor driver Jim Seitz, an empty jar with the word "tips" on pink paper greets students as they enter the affectionately nicknamed "drunk bus." \n"(Driving) is interesting at times," Seitz said. "Some nights it's a lot of fun, and some nights I wonder why I do it. It's fun when the kids are in a real good mood. Some nights it's relaxing to sit here and drive around, have fun with the kids and talk to them."\nSeitz, 41, has lived in Bloomington for 10 years and has driven the late night route for three years. He makes his living as a Correctional Sergeant for the Bloomington Juvenile Correctional Facility and drives the bus for extra cash to support his family, which includes three children and two grandchildren.\nBut on Thursday or Friday nights, Seitz faces a different type of juvenile: often an intoxicated IU student. Seitz said he carries over his experience with juveniles to dealing with unruly students on the bus.\n"You just have to have patience with people," Seitz said. "Most of the time when you do have problems with them, you have to be firm. You have to be consistent. Just try to resolve situations before they get too far. It's about common sense most of the time."\nStudents have been displaying more common sense lately in using the service as a safe option to get home. The number of riders has skyrocketed since the service's inception in 2001. For example, the spring 2001 semester had 2,439 riders. Last semester, from the beginning of the year through the Oct. 30-Nov. 1 weekend, 11,400 students rode the bus on the operating nights of Thursday through Saturday.\nSeitz said the difference is huge.\n"You can definitely tell this is our busiest year," Seitz said. "At the beginning when we started doing it, there'd be some nights when we would haul 20 people. Now, it's not uncommon to haul 200 people in a night."\nKent McDaniel, the Assistant Director of Transportation Services at IU, said he's excited about the progress the service is making, since his goal is to have over 20,000 riders for the semester. McDaniel said the service now is averaging 407.6 riders a night and 1,222.7 a weekend.\nStudents pay for the service through the mandatory transportation fee included in their tuition. This year, the fee was $30, which also pays for Campus Bus Services and allows for complementary Bloomington Transit buses. \nIU contracts the service, and Bloomington Shuttle, Inc. has been the only provider since the service began. Chris Gourley, who has been the President of Bloomington Shuttle, Inc., for 10 years, defines the relationship between IU and his company with a simple example.\n"We're Wells Fargo," Gourley said. "And we work for the bank (IU)."\nMcDaniel said the mission of the bus driver and the university is simple: safety.\n"We're trying to provide a safe alternative to people traveling late at night," McDaniel said. "That's the real purpose behind the midnight special, to get people home."\nSenior Justin Crilly said he thinks the "drunk bus" does a pretty good job of getting students home, though many students aren't aware of the 20-minute route schedule.\n"Overall, it provides a very valuable service to those of us that are 21 and go to the bars," Crilly said. "I haven't figured out its timing yet, so I just kind of wait around and see what happens."\nSome might wonder what would motivate a 41-year-old man to drive college-age students around from 11 p.m. to 4 a.m. Seitz said he gets a feeling of satisfaction at the end of the night knowing he did his part to keep drunk drivers off the roads.\nAfter driving for three years, Seitz has interesting stories to tell in his southern Indiana drawl. From breaking up fights to having students forget where they live, Seitz has seen it all.\n"I've been lucky because I've never had anybody get sick on the bus yet," Seitz said. "I've had a few fights I've had to break up. I've had more fights last year than I did any other year. It's usually the upper-classmen giving the freshmen a hard time."\nSeitz's hardest time of the night is at 3 a.m. when the bars shut down. Every night around this time he sees students running across streets, like Walnut Ave., to catch the bus. \nFor Seitz, it's the busiest, most hectic time of the night.\n"You pull up in front of Kilroys Sports and you have 50, 60 or 75 kids running to get on the bus," Seitz said. "They all try to get on the bus at once. They all want to be the first ones off. You've got some kids who want to go to Jordan (Ave.) first and some want the dorms first. If you don't go there first, they get mad at you.\n"...But, it's not too bad." \n-- Contact sports editor John Rodgers at jprodger@indiana.edu