It’s a common refrain among my friends who take the city bus to campus. “Sorry I was late,” they say. “You know how the buses are.”
And after the beginning of this semester, I definitely do. I’ve recently started taking the bus to campus every day after moving farther from downtown. Since IU encourages students and staff alike to use “the existing transportation system” rather than personal vehicles, I figured I’d do my part.
Unfortunately, the existing state of Bloomington Transit (BT) has made me wish I could drive my car to campus more and more. A confusing and glitchy app, constantly late, full buses and exorbitant wait times have made my enthusiasm for riding the bus turn to frustration.
Let’s do a case study: BT’s own Campus Shuttle, the 6. Before noon, buses come to the stop directly across the street from my apartment every 20 minutes. In the afternoons, however, the service is cut in half from four buses to just two. So, while masses of hungry, tired students are trying to get off campus in the evenings, the service is halved, making it even more difficult for everyone to get home. On top of that, traffic on Tenth Street makes the service even slower, so instead of coming every 40 minutes it’s more like every hour.
So, that leaves me with three options.
One: Wait for over half an hour for a bus that might just rocket past me, flashing “FULL BUS” on its screen.
Two: Get a bus that’s going to drop me off on the other side of a busy main street that I have to cross with no crosswalks.
Three: Get a roommate to pick me up, only contributing to the horrendous traffic on campus.
None of these are winners.
And when is the bus even coming? It’s hard to tell. BT’s live bus tracking app, SPOT ETA, consistently crashes and glitches on my phone.The app shows inaccurate arrival times and the timetables on stops are confusing. When I’m waiting in the hot September sun and squinting at my screen trying to read a glitchy app, the issues become all the more apparent.
I’ve found it tough to truly rely on BT for my transportation needs, which really sucks since it’s my only option. Luckily, I have a car over the weekends, but I can’t imagine how frustrated I would be if I had no other means of running errands and seeing my friends.
BT just hasn’t progressed into the modern age. If we want to see more ridership and happier customers, something needs to change quickly.
Earlier this year, BT applied for a $35 million grant from the federal government to support a new operations facility. But that grant wasn’t awarded to BT, which means that major improvements are still a long way away.
BT needs a bigger investment from federal, state and local governments. The system’s 2024 revenue saw a nearly 37% decrease from 2023 in funding from the federal government. The only way BT can improve is with more resources.
Despite the troubles, some positive changes are coming out of Bloomington Transit. BT introduced BLink this summer, a microtransit system designed to help riders get around Bloomington on demand. BT can also expand their service area into places outside of Bloomington, like Ellettsville.
But a lot more still needs to be done. One microtransit service won’t fix the poor quality of the main bus routes that people rely on.
BT can start with one big step forward: more buses, more frequently, particularly on routes students rely on heavily. I think anyone who has waited for upwards of half an hour in the sun for a bus can agree with this. This may seem like it would back up traffic around campus even more, but it could have the opposite effect. If fewer people are driving to campus to pick up their roommates because they can count on the bus to deliver them home in a timely fashion, maybe Tenth Street won’t be a warzone in the afternoons.
I have faith that Bloomington Transit can and will improve. But it needs a lot more support, both from our government and, most importantly, the community. Because frankly, all of us — students or not — need a Bloomington that’s a bit less of a nightmare to get around in.
Danny William (they/them) is a junior studying cinematic arts.
