Wra 101 Project 3 Working Draft

Owen Downey, Olivia Mazzola, Drake Myny WRA 101 Project 3 March 20, 2019 Project 3 In the 2018-2019 school year, Michigan State University announced that they would be providing free bus services for all MSU students, staff, and faculty. This was to be on a trial basis for both the University and CATA (which has been the bus service at MSU since 1999). Should the initiative be considered successful, the contract would be renewed for future use of students. The news of free bussing was good news for the students, as previously bus passes for a semester were about $60. Generally speaking, the free busses are extremely popular for MSU students. First year students in particular have enjoyed this new privilege as they are not permitted cars on campus. This is made even better by the fact that this past year’s Freshman class was the largest in MSU’s history. More busses on campus also means that older students may not want to bring their cars to MSU, as they can use the busses and save money on parking passes, and time on finding parking on campus. However, due to the popularity, and the increased amount of Freshman on campus, the busses have been the victim of overcrowding. This is a huge issue for students that rely on the busses to get to class or work. The busses being overcrowded means that students have to wait longer for busses as there are strict limits to how many students that can fit on the bus at one time. Add to this fact that Michigan has extremely harsh winters, and severe low temperatures, and it is not only an inconvenience to students, but also a safety hazard.

This issue is also a relatively new one. In previous years, MSU’s bussing system had a $60 per semester fee. This was enough to make some students decide that their money was best spent elsewhere. However, now that the busses are free, the issue has arose. This is obvious because other lines outside of the free 30 lines are not nearly as crowded as any of the free routes. This issue is a relatively new one, and spiked around the winter months when temperatures were at their coldest. It is our group’s belief that there needs to be something done about this issue of overcrowded busses. To achieve this, we have come up with a few different ideas. One of which is to replace the older models with CATA’s newer models. These models are not only more fuel efficient and environmentally friendly, they are also more spacious than older busses of the same size. This solution is the best of both worlds because we are not only being green, but we are getting more students on busses at once. Another solution is to simply add more busses to the routes. Ideally these would be the new busses as well so they have more space on them. Our third solution is to change bus routes, and take busses from the less popular routes and use them on the more popular ones. The 31 route in particular is a very long route. This is also the only bus that goes to Brody Neighborhood, where a large chunk of MSU students reside. This solution could entail breaking up long routes like the 31 into shorter ones, therefore making the routes more efficient. We know that this is not going to be cheap to add more busses to the routes. The current way that the busses are being paid for is through MSU’s general fund. This means that there was no increase in tuition for students to be able to provide this service. However, if more busses were to be added, MSU could partner with CATA in order to fund these extra busses. This could

be done either by building the cost into the tuition of each student, or, alternatively, having a smaller, reduced semester pass available to students. To gain information into this issue, we have decided to contact Lolo Robinson, CATA executive in charge of public affairs. We asked her several question regarding the status of the contract between MSU and CATA and the overall satisfaction of students. We wanted to understand how, and if this test was successful for CATA. To get insight on MSU’s side of this issue we decided to contact MSU’s Transportation Services through the Infrastructure Planning Services. We also will be contacting MSU Sustainability to gain insight into CATA’s “Clean Machines.” We will be asking them similar questions to what we asked CATA, but we just wanted to see what the service was like from MSU’s perspective.