Avoid the parking nightmare, ride the city bus
■ LTD plans no major changes in its system for this year, but is
asking that riders offer opinions on future route restructuring
By Jack Clifford
Oregon Daily Emerald
There may be no such thing as a
free lunch, but students can at least
get a free ride.
Well, sort of.
Thanks to a portion of their inci
dental fee monies, University stu
dents can use the Lane Transit Dis
trict bus system with a flash of a
student ID card. The fee for the reg
ular student body is $6.80 per
term, while law school students —
who are on a semester schedule —
pay $10.31 per term.
University faculty and staff also
ride for free thanks to parking rev
enue.
“We try to make sure everyone is
aware of [the service],” parking
and transportation manager for the
Office of Public Safety Rand
Stamm said. “We have such a car
oriented culture and trying to get
people to change that mindset is a
tough one.”
Stamm works closely with LTD
to promote the free bus system,
and a spokesman at the transit
agency said there will be very few
changes to the program this year.
Andy Vobora, LTD’s service plan
ning and marketing manager, said
that both parties — LTD and the
University — benefit from the
Group Pass program. The Univer
sity administration doesn’t have to
spend a lot of money providing
parking for students and the rev
enue helps LTD when designing
new programs.
Although Vobora mentioned no
changes for this year, the transit
agency is looking ahead to future
route restructuring and he said that
students should have input on
those changes. There are two av
enues to offer feedback, he said:
An Oct. 12 open house at the LTD
downtown center, located in the
1100 block of Willamette Street,
and a Web site at www.ltd.org.
Click on the “comprehensive serv
ice re-design” link to check out the
University students, faculty and staff can ride the bus for free, any day, any time, with a valid ID card.
TomPatteron for the Emerald
proposals.
Vobora said that LTD is also
looking into the viability of a shut
tle system from campus to places
such as downtown or the Valley
River Center.
One visible change that LTD has
made regionwide this year is not
mailing riders’ guides, which con
tain schedules, fares and maps, to
Lane County residents. The cost
cutting measure was due to the fact
that retention of the guides was low
er than expected when people were
surveyed on usage, Vobora said.
Riders can pick up the guides on
any bus, at the Eugene downtown
station or at LTD’s headquarters in
Glenwood.
Turn to Free ride, page 18C
Since 1922 • Member American Gem Society
1027 Willamette St. • 345-0354
Valley River Center • 342-4496
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