Downtown Buffalo is just 6.2 miles from South Campus and even has a metro line. Still, some students find it difficult to explore areas of Buffalo that fall outside the UB Stampede’s zone.
UB students differ on whether the rail is easy to use. But most agree that if the metro were free, students would utilize it more to see different parts of Buffalo.
UB does offer shuttle service, the Blue Line, which runs from South Campus to downtown every 30-60 minutes.
Buffalo State, Canisius and Erie County Community Colleges are a few schools that provide students free NFTA services downtown. The schools participate in the NFTA’s College Transit Pass Program, which supplies all students with unlimited NFTA access. The participating universities pay at a discounted rate.
Joann Wang, a junior psychology major, does not own a car and would use the NFTA to get downtown, but finds the system inconvenient. She said if UB students were able to receive commuter passes, it would promote more students to go downtown.
“If they had the passes they would be more motivated to explore Buffalo,” Wang said. “People go here for all four years … and they only know the college campus.”
Daniel Hess, associate professor in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning, led a study on a pilot program that UB conducted in partnership with NFTA.
NFTA gave eligible UB students, faculty and staff transit passes that allowed them unlimited use of the NFTA Metro Rail from January 2011 to August 2012 – a 20-month span. The pre-paid metro passes were given to 2,813 students and 310 faculty and staff members. The passes were given out on a first-come-first-served basis after people submitted an application to participate.
The pilot differed from other universities who have similar programs because UB’s passes did not include the bus system.
UB paid $10 per student and $30 per faculty member over the 20-month program. The university saved money by reducing the number of trips made by the Blue Line. The line made half as many trips when the program was going on.
UB’s net savings over the pilot was $62,000 and 60 percent of participants rode the metro rail more often after receiving the passes, according to the report. Sixty-nine percent of them used the rail to visit new places in Buffalo.
The program also transferred 1,300 miles of travel to the Metro rather than by car.
UB and NFTA could not reach an agreement to continue the transit pass program before the end of the pilot period, so the program was discontinued.
Victoria Robbins, a junior psychology major, goes to downtown Buffalo two to three times a week.
She currently works at the Research Institute on Addictions, located on Main Street in downtown Buffalo. She said it is easy for students to get downtown by taking the NFTA or UB’s Blue Line.
Jordan Diggory, a junior music theatre major, said it isn’t hard for students to get downtown, but the process is a little more difficult than it has to be.
“We go to a school that is just outside of a city that is in the middle of a cultural revival, that is trying to rebuild what it was after all the factory jobs dried up,” he said.
Diggory, however, does not think it is the university’s issue to transport students downtown.
Buffalo State College offers its students unlimited access to the NFTA Metro Bus and Rail system through the NFTA Buffalo State Student Transit Pass program. A student only needs a Student Transit Pass and Buffalo State photo ID to use the service.
Diggory said the more than 20,000 people at UB that are only about 20 minutes away is a “fresh flow of income” for downtown Buffalo.
“Being able to witness all the amazing infrastructure and progress that is occurring right here in Buffalo is definitely special,” Robbins said in an email. “You don’t necessarily get to see that by simply staying within a five-mile radius of North, or even South Campus.”
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