B bus overcrowding causes consternation

Despite recent complaints from students about overcrowding caused by the new B bus schedule, IU Campus Bus Service Operations Manager Perry Maull said little can be done to alleviate the inconvenience. Maull said the best way for students to deal with crowded buses is to give themselves extra time to get to class and try to ride the bus at off-hours of the day. \n"We have only a limited number of buses," Maull said. "You know, if everybody tries to go at exactly the same time, it is just not going to work."\nStudent complaints have arisen from long waits at bus stops, particularly on North Jordan Avenue and at busy stops like the Indiana Memorial Union and the Herman B Wells Library. \nThe concerns come following a change in the B route schedule that took effect Oct. 1, which stopped the buses at Fishers Court, the last turnoff on the North Jordan Avenue extension. The route previously ran past Fishers Court to the Memorial Stadium parking lot. The bus service made the change to cut down the number of buses running on the route, according to a Sept. 21 Indiana Daily Student article. \nSophomore Abby Siegel, who waits with her sorority sisters at the stop at the top of the North Jordan extension, said she has actually been late to class even when she's been outside the Sigma Delta Tau house half an hour before class. \n"A bunch of us have been late because it passes us, and we're pretty early on the bus stop, which shouldn't happen. It shouldn't fill up that fast," Siegel said.\nSiegel wrote an e-mail to the bus service after she said she was passed three times one morning. The bus service responded to Siegel's complaint and concerns from other students by speeding up the B route schedule beginning Oct. 9, which added 18 new trips each day. \nHowever, wait times and overcrowding were not eliminated by the change. Tuesday afternoon, it took a B bus traveling up the North Jordan extension only three stops to fill to capacity. The bus passed every succeeding stop on North Jordan, many of which had at least five to 10 people waiting.\nSophomore Shelly Lewis, who said she complained to the bus service after being passed on the extension more than once the same day, waits at the same stop as Siegel. She said her complaints arose from the fact that she felt nothing was being done about wait times. She also said she believed the bus service wasn't adequately serving the student population on North Jordan Avenue.\n"Honestly, we watch the buses pass us on the way down to (Alpha Delta Pi) and come back, but there's no change in the time they take," Lewis said. "They don't help us at all. They don't do anything. They make it worse."\nLewis said she missed a quiz one day, though she was at her bus stop 30 minutes before her class started. \nStudents said wait times have not changed since the scheduling adjustment. \nSophomore Allison Cully said she often waited between 20 and 45 minutes outside the Psychology Building on Seventh Street for a bus. She said she didn't see how the original scheduling change -- ending the route at the end of North Jordan instead of at the stadium parking lot -- had made things faster.\n"You know I don't see a difference, since they took away buses they had to make the route shorter," Cully said. "It still takes a good amount of time for them to turn around."\nCully also said she felt safety on the buses had become an issue, with too many students standing past the yellow line at the front of the bus. \nMaull said no one should be allowed to stand in front of the yellow line but suggested students wait for the next bus instead. He said crowding on the bus is unsafe and can cause delays. \nMaull said adding a bus to any of the routes was not a short-term option because buying a bus takes time and the bus service is understaffed with drivers. He said he received complaints about all of the bus routes, not just the B route. \n"I'm almost amazed we've had as few problems as we have," Maull said. "We have only a limited number of buses. As I've advised people, take an earlier bus, and allow yourself more time."\nLewis said she believed people relied less on the bus service because it is so unpredictable. \n"Honestly, I do think that there was some change (since they altered they schedule)," Lewis said. "It was because people really started getting the idea that they can't rely on the bus service."\nMaull encouraged students to apply to become bus drivers and help alleviate the bus service's staffing problem. He said in the meantime, the best way to beat the crowds was to avoid them as much as possible. \n"We only have so many cards in the deck," Maull said. "There are things that you can do to sort of work the system and not make it an aggravation for yourself"