Campus Transportation Committee

The CTC met for the second time this year on December 3, 2010. Two key things were discussed during the meeting:

1) Bus pass fee for Academic Staff and Faculty

2) Lot designation and rates changes

Patrick Kass, the Director of Transportation Services of UW-Madison, in his report, revealed that his Department’s budget is having a deficit of 1 Million $ for the next year. And so they are looking into various options to fill in the deficit. He said that he might have the faculty and the academic staff of the University pay a fee of 50$ for the bus pass. This will generate a sum of 300,000 $. Currently the bus passes for the Academic staff and faculty is fully subsidized, while the students pay around 90-100$ (as part of the segregated fee) towards their subsidized bus passes (the Madison Metro charges an amount of 660$ per pass).

The next proposed changes, Patrick intended to have as a means to increase their revenue, were in the form of rate changes for parking lots. The changes will affect different level parking permits differently. There are 3 different kinds (or levels) of parking in the University parking lots : Level 1, Level 2 and Level 3. Currently, Level 1 parking permits cost 500$; Level 2 cost around 600$ and Level 3 cost 1085$ per year. The changes suggested by Patrick were that parking rates for Level 1 be increased gradually, over a period of 4 years, from the existing 500$ to 800$ and parking rates for Level 2 increased from 600$ to 800$. And parking rates for Level 3 would be increased from 1085$ to 1200$ over the same period of 4 years. At the end of 4 years, rather than having 3 levels, we will then have just 2 levels of parking permits. In summary, level 1 lots will progress to level 2 rates and all parking structure will progress to level 3 rate. Surface level 2 lots will mainly stay at the same category.

In the end, the committee recommended that the parking permits be increased as suggested, but the fee for bus passes for the academic staff and faculty be charged after two years, i.e., from the third year onwards.

-Sharad Punuganti

Campus Transportation Committee 11/05/2010

The first annual meeting of the CTC was held on Friday, Nov 5th.

The agenda of the meeting primarily consisted of a presentation on the transportation by bicycles in Europe by Alan Fish, followed by a discussion by the chair, Prof. Noyce, and then updates from Patrick Kass, the director of Transportation Services.

The presentation on the transportation by bicycles in Europe described the following points :

1) The abundance of bike routes in the cities. Almost any two places in the cities were connected by bike routes.

2) The clear distinction between bike routes and roads. Bike routes were laid using red brick. This also allowed the bikers to see the path of the bike routes from far distances.

3) The abundance of bike stations in Europe. People rent bikes from bike stations, (the entire renting process takes less than 5 minutes) which are located at convenient places around the city. For example, all rail stations had bike stations located near them. People get down from a train, rent/buy a bike for cheap and commute from the station to other places in the city by bike. Similarly, they commute back to the rail stations by bike and leave their bikes in the bike parking lots nearby. One problem that they faced was the presence of countless unused bikes in the bike parking lots near the rail stations that just wasted space.

4) The affordable and easy availability of various kinds of utility bikes, low-power driven bikes, electric bikes etc- in Europe.

5) Photos taken inside the parking lots of a School campus were shown. In a school that consisted of more than 2000 students and about 300 staff, there were just 5-7 cars parked in the car parking lot (with 2 more spots being empty), while a sea of bikes were parked in the bike parking area. This suggested the higher inclination of the people to bikes for transportation purposes. The reasons could be attributed to the ease of transportation by bicycles there.

6) Abundance of bicycle parking places throughout the cities.

7) The bicycle stands and bicycles themselves have various kinds of attractive designs and is considered as an art form there.

Jo Matzner, ASM appointee to the CTC, raised the issue where some Madison Metro buses, riding in campus, were wrapped by ads of Pabst Blue Ribbon beer on all sides. The issue was of importance considering that promoting alcohol is something the University has actively moved to get away from and also in the past ASM has had concerns with wrapped buses and were told that the first one was a mistake and it wouldn’t happen again.

In his report, Patrick, the Director of Transportation Services, hinted that the faculty and the staff of the University will have to pay a sum of 50$ for the bus passes. This is unlike previously where the faculty and the staff get the bus passes free of cost.

-Sharad Punuganti