All or nothing

The Indiana Daily Student recently ran an article that detailed the upcoming changes to the Campus Bus Service for the 2008-09 school year. Apparently, last school year saw the highest volume of riders on the campus bus services in more than 40 years. The grand total came in at more than 3 million riders.

Naturally, these findings have brought with them plans to lessen the number of routes and make the buses less comfortable for riders.

Campus Bus Services Operations Manager Perry Maull said in that story that services would have to be cut, including getting rid of the U-Bus route and cutting back services on Fridays and weekends. He also noted that seats on the lower levels of the buses would be removed, in order to accommodate (read: pack in) more people.

The Friday bus route cuts are extremely appropriate because just this April we had University officials whining that there weren’t enough Friday classes and expressing that this resulted in scheduling problems. Cutting bus routes is obviously a step in the right direction. I personally know numerous students who would prefer to walk to class at 8 a.m. on Friday than take a bus.

The proposed seat removal would apparently leave a couple seats for the elderly and handicapped, who so often need to take a campus bus from Jordan Hall to the SRSC at 2 p.m. on a Tuesday afternoon.

I’m not sure this is the best plan of action.

Anyone who is anyone is familiar with the great O-Town classic hit, “All Or Nothing.” If any readers are in the dark, here is a brief sampling of their inspirational lyrics which were supposedly about love but seemed to be more about sex: “Cause I want it all/ Or nothing at all/There’s no where left to fall/When you reach the bottom it’s now or never.”

The Campus Bus Services would do well to follow O-Town’s brilliant, timeless and inspiring lead and do the same: “all or nothing.”

Please, go ahead and remove all the seats from the buses. Who wants to sit, really? If any elderly, handicapped or generally fussy bus riders have a problem with this, let’s just strap them to the top with some bungee cords. And anyone who is overweight or has an abnormally large backpack should just forget about riding entirely – let’s ban them.

Everyone knows that patience is a virtue, now let’s put that into practice. Buses should cease operating on any sort of “schedule” and simply come whenever the spirit moves them. Riders who are patient and can wait – forever, if that’s what it takes. Their patience will be rewarded with bus rides and, obviously, a glorious afterlife.

Ideally, we could pack enough people on the buses to allow us to cut routes in half. Who wants a bus to come in a timely fashion? Not me.

These proposals are definitely the best options on the table, just as “All Or Nothing” was the greatest song of all time.

I am not going to make another O-Town reference.