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The Amazing Bus Protest

While not attracting as many students as anticipated, the Bus Protest arranged by Dotters-Katz and ASUO Chief of Staff Andrew Plambleck successfully improved late night students reputations. Students rode the busses on Friday and Saturday nights wearing more sophisticated clothes to fight the stereotypes of rowdy drunken students. LTD Spokesman Andy Vebora agrees that students have been more conscious of their behavior since Brian Pasquali’s complaints, and that security reports have been better over the last month. View these students in their disruptive glory:

  1. Lyzi says:

    Vincent,

    Yes. We really need one.

    The Designated Driver Shuttle takes ~200 students home every weekend night, and ~40 students home every weekday night. This is when we operate one nine-passenger Ford Econoline van on weekday nights and four vans on the weekend nights. The Assault Prevention Shuttle has slightly smaller numbers, but only because they have fewer vans and fewer employees. Both shuttles have been running at absolute capacity all year (as you can probably deduce from the complaints from students surrounding long wait times that dominate conversations regarding campus rides).

    Before the late night bus, DDS was absolutely overrun with ride requests from campus to Kinsrow and back. We would have all four vans over on Kinsrow at any given time with 18 rides left to be allocated on the campus side of the river. The original brainstormed solutions surrounding this problem included using state motor pool vans to supplement our service with additional funding from the ASUO, but that brought up more issues involving equipment in our vans. APS was having similar issues, but I cannot speak to those issues specifically as I am not involved in their service. The final solution was for the ASUO to co-fund a late night service through LTD with the university administration, and as soon as the bus started and students became informed about it, those rides to and from Kinsrow slowly trailed off.

    Simply put, with all of the freshmen living over on Kinsrow this year, DDS and APS do not have the capacity to take everyone home. Expansion of our services was not ideal at the beginning of this year, and it probably wouldn’t have made that much of a difference anyway. We simply do not have enough room. The late night bus has saved our services. The turnover rates at DDS have gone down, we are staying within our budget, and we are no longer faced with the impossible task of providing safe rides home to all of the people that the university did not have room for in the dorms.

    Perhaps it’s a stretch to say that the late night bus saved the Designated Driver Shuttle, but it’s helping to keep us afloat for a little bit longer.

  2. Marshall C says:

    Have you ever thought that maybe the transit union isn’t serious about canceling the service. Maybe they just understand that the only way to get any results out of self-entitled, drunk, douchey college students is to threaten them with inconvenience and adult responsibility. (Is cab fare not a part of peoples “drinkin’ money” anymore)

  3. nike urbanism duk says:

    Deploy the nerd Delta Force onto LTD immediately. Mission outcome: One casualty-gum stuck on the bottom of shoe. The end.

  4. Timothy says:

    No one is talking about entitlement, Vincent. It

  5. Josh M. says:

    Pretty much every Family Guy episode has sucked since they came back. I know it was mentioned in the last issue, but it was somewhat self-evident already.

  6. Vincent says:

    We would be the only public university in the nation without a late-night bus service if we lost this one. And most schools have a late-night SYSTEM, not just one bus.

    But do we really need one?

  7. Andrew says:

    No one is talking about entitlement, Vincent. It’s about pragmatism. We would be the only public university in the nation without a late-night bus service if we lost this one. And most schools have a late-night SYSTEM, not just one bus.

    As for the Amalgamated Transit Union, Mr. Pasquali claims he’s calling the service to be cut out of support for the “brothers and sisters” of the union. Well, that’s where this gets a little hairy. The 79x route is LTD’s busiest route by far, which means a lot to an organization mostly propped up by federal bailout money. If this route were cut, they would lose their biggest revenue source and those union brothers and sisters will LOSE THEIR JOBS.

    I really hope Mr. Pasquali will think through the ramifications of his political maneuverings, as the lost jobs of union drivers, the late-night walks home alone in the dark by 18-year-old girls and the setback of university transportation policy by about fifty years will be on his hands.

    Andrew Plambeck
    ASUO Chief of Staff

  8. Vincent says:

    Are you suggesting the service be cut?

    Yes.

    A bunch of well-dressed kids showing up one time will have exactly zero effect on the people who are the problem in the first place.

    If stupid assholes ruin it for everyone… well, that’s the tragedy of the commons*. No one’s entitled to super special bus service, and if they blow their chances… well, tough nuts.

    *Pun only slightly intended.

  9. Timothy says:

    Also, this seems like the kind of thing College Republicans would do.

  10. Timothy says:

    I am disappointed to see the Commentator celebrating an act of sobriety.

  11. Betz says:

    Psh, you seem to forget that there’s a RECESSION going on right now! There’s no jobs for them to work, let alone money to buy suits …. how inconsiderate!

  12. Michelle says:

    Excuse the redundancy.

  13. Michelle says:

    Dude, Guido,

    It was unfortunate that the turnout wasn’t as high as anticipated. This actually wasn’t the brainchild of Sam, and it wasn’t intended to be a “protest.” The goal was just to get a bunch of students to ride the bus to show that the college stereotype of drunk students using LTD’s late-night service are not the only people using the services. I don’t want the service to be cut, but think the concerns regarding the debauchery on the bus is founded. By sitting on the bus, looking well-dressed, it at least got some drunk kids curious about what we were doing instead of acting like asshats playing the “who can scream the loudest” game.

    The efficacy of this event may seem intangible to you, but it is far preferable to try to find solutions to this problem. I’m surprised you can’t find how silly it is to sit outside watching people trying to improve a situation as you sat and watched, just waiting for a reason to tear people down. Are you suggesting the service be cut? What are you doing?

    P.S. That episode of Family Guy SUCKED.

  14. Guido says:

    (in the words of Stewy Griffin)
    So uh Yah, So hows the bus protest going there Sam? Hows that politics thing there? So what did you do, send out about 180 evites? Ya, so about 12 showed up, yah? Ya? Hows that going for ya?

    To the people that showed up to this dog and pony show: If you think its about your clothes or some sort of stereotypes, your misinformed. Its about Binge drinking and then going out onto a public bus to ass out like you cant at a party or the bar cause you rolled up or kicked out.
    It was funny watching you guys stand there looking at each other, taking pictures of each other. It was so cute. Ironically you will all be the same stupid people occupying the same suites in just a couple years.
    Wankers!

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