Bus me, don't bust me

What if you could ride all the buses in town for a fraction of the current fee? Would you drive less, ride more? \nLast Wednesday, the IU Student Association tabled a bill that would raise student transportation fees in order to enable universal access to all buses run by Bloomington Transit and Campus Bus.\nIt could ease campus traffic. It could save students lots of money. In short, it's a great idea, and it's not a new one, either.\nFirst things first -- a little bus fee education. The "free" buses on campus -- the ones any student can ride by showing a valid student IU -- aren't really free at all. \nRight now, every student pays at least one bus fee, but some end up paying two. The first, a regular all-student fee, is relatively small. \nThirty dollars per semester covers all the green buses run by Bloomington Transit, the red "X" bus that runs from the Indiana Memorial Union to Memorial Stadium on weekdays and the "Midnight Special," the dark-hour carriage of drunkenness that has three routes running every 20 minutes from 11 p.m. to 4 a.m. Thursday through Saturday. \nThe second fee, which is optional and more costly, pays for a universal pass available from the Campus bussing company. This is the fee you see on RegWeb just before checking out -- $107 per semester and I'll get access to every bus in town. Great deal, right?\nNot exactly. Most don't need to pay this additional fee in order to ride their favorite bus routes.\nHere's where it gets tricky. Under the current system, people who live off-campus need the $107 bus pass like they need a scuzz and anthrax casserole. Unfortunately, on-campus bus riders have to take a big, nasty bite each semester.\nLow-cost transportation is available to those living on North Jordan Avenue, in on-campus apartments or in the northern dormitories. These are the areas that Campus Bus routes A, B, D and E serve -- the routes that cost $107 to ride. On top of the big fee, students in these areas are also hit with the regular transportation fee, paying for people they don't know to ride on routes they'll never see. \nTo these students, it's double jeopardy. It's paying child support for someone else's kid. It's capitalism and communism combined -- pick an ethos and stick to it, already. \nCharge one flat fee. It's fair. This is what IUSA should do.\nNot surprisingly, many decide not to play this high-stakes game of "wheels on the bus." Why ride when you can drive?\nThat's why all the cars are here during the day. That's why there are no parking spaces. That's why a 30-year-old virgin isn't as backed up as Tenth Street and Fee Lane on a weekday. Students in sedans, co-eds in coupes and rich, east-coast girls in SUV's are the plaque clogging the circulation of IU's main arteries. \n More people riding buses would mean less people driving cars. IUSA's proposal just might be the right chelator (meaning "to remove heavy metal from the bloodstream") for IU.\n To some students, the added $15 dollars per semester would be a slight increase to a perfectly useful fee, but to those not yet in the transportation fee's service area, the new bill would give them a better way to commute, improve traffic on campus and save them enough for an extra keg per semester. Maybe even two.