Eye Opener: Photo Essay

I think that I will use the opportunity presented by this photo essay to tell you all about something that puzzles me. That issue is two things I commonly hear students here complain about; no where to park, and high gas prices. I have no sympathy for those who complain, because there are things they can do to avoid those things.

I could definitely drive to school everyday, but I don't. Why not? Because I can ride the bus. I ride the bus firstly because it is cheap, and secondly I know that it is good for the environment. I feel like the bus is overlooked by a lot of students.

This picture I took Monday morning stopping at the school. I noticed that it was only about half full, with about three fourths of the passengers being college students.  The bus that I rode just before this one pulled up had nine people on it and three got off at Kirby Plaza. Why don't more people ride the bus? Being a smart guy I would think that there is a relative reason, like its inconvenient or expensive.

 So then I got to thinking about the convenience of the bus. It must not be because there aren't enough stops because I see sign like this one all over town. The one that I stand by most often is actually less than one block from my house. Then I though that maybe it was because of the times the bus came by. But the bus I ride for my class at 8 every morning stops at my house at 7:37, and gets to the school at 7:48. I can't find much of anything inconvenient about that.

So then It must be because of the price that people drive instead of taking the bus. Lets look at just the price of parking at UMD.  A couple of my roommates have parking permits which they paid around $200 for. Or they can park in the lot shown below and pay each time they park, let's do some math from that sign; say you pay on your U-Card just 3 days a week for 15 weeks (one semester) and that come out to around $78.75. So that must mean that the bus is more expensive than these two options if all the parking lots fill up. Right? But wait, the bus is FREE. 

So maybe the reason why drive is because you can park so much closer to the door, and not have to walk so far. But this picture taken at 7:30 Monday morning when the this parking lot was just about half full, you couldn't even see the library door. And the bus drops you off literally 15 feet from the door. I stood at the entrance to this parking lot for a few minutes counting the cars that came in and I tried to determine how many had more than one person in them. I counted 25 cars coming in, and only one had more than one person in it, so I gave up on that idea.

So why is it that so many people drive to school? I understand that some people live off bus routes, or out of town so that is not an option for them, and some people have to drive for other reasons, but why do all the parking lots get filled? Why would you spend all that money on parking and gas, while doing your part to destroy the environment? Maybe somebody can help me out with understanding why more people don't take the bus. It is free, it save you the hassle of finding a place to park, and most importantly it saves all those emissions from entering the air we breathe. 

I hope that all of you will consider riding the bus if you don't already, and help talk your friends into doing the same thing. More information about bus schedules and routes can be found at the Duluth Transit Authority website.