OUR VIEW: How many USU students to fill a bus?

When high school kids come to USU for a recruitment tour, the guide always points out three things: Aggie Ice Cream is awesome (hooray!), the Business Building is the tallest building in Cache Valley (hooray?) and all the buses are free.

The Aggie Shuttle was once the pride of USU. A free form a transportation that was so convenient well ran that even students who never rode a single bus bragged about it to their friends at other schools.

But, why then are so many left out in the cold waiting for a ride?

Seriously, why?

Has the transportation department suffered cut backs in their budget?

Is there a shortage of student with the CDLs on campus to drive the buses?

Are the new natural gas buses so much bigger than it was assumed fewer buses were needed?

Or did the blue paint just wear off and now the pure white just blends in with all the snow?

What we do know is there are more students coming late to class, blaming the buses.

We know that drivers are often heard to say that they’re the only ones on the route at the time.

We know that winter is a time for more bus routes, not less.

Public transportation makes sense, whether you’re concerns about the environment, economics or just parking. We fully support the buses on campus. They help make campus better for everyone, even those who don’t ride them.

We’re still big fans of the Aggie Shuttle program, we just want it to be a great as we’ve seen it be.

We hope to see more shuttles again soon so that everyone can get where they need to go quickly, safely and most importantly these days, warm.

That or dogsleds for everyone. We’ll take what we can get.