On Thursday, April 3, UB students and Parking & Transportation employees spoke at an open forum to discuss issues and the future of transportation. P&T employees tried to convince students that a plan that didn't work the first time would work now.
As UB adds students, the problems we face will remain the same. The question is whether things will be done the right way or the cheap way.
Right now, transportation or lack thereof is leaving students wanting. There cannot be unity between campuses, let alone with the rest of the community, if students are stranded.
NFTA won't be the solution, with infrastructure unable to accommodate a potential influx of 27,000 UB students. SA President Peter Grollitsch refuses to use mandatory student fees for passes not every student will use.
Moreover, P&T needs to expand their busing schedules and services to accommodate student's lifestyles. Students will always like the urbanesque atmosphere South Campus has to offer, all while living on and having classes on North Campus.
Students have trouble getting back and forth because of unreliable, sporadic services that lead to undergrads trampling each other for a spot on the stampede.
UB's suburban location lends itself more to drivers. It's not conducive to pedestrians and the buses are unreliable and indirect.
Most of our school ground is asphalt, not greenery, as a result of the continued outward expansion of parking lots. Is adding more parking lots sprawling further and further from the Academic Spine really the solution?
Parking & Transportation envisions more lots similar to the park-and-ride fashion the Center for Tomorrow provides. Wouldn't it be better to build up in the form of a parking garage than to build out, adding on lot after lot?
The fact that UB is tackling an age-old problem with the same solutions that have failed in the past bodes poorly for future solutions. As Mark Twain said, only insane people do the same thing over and over again, expecting different outcomes.
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
