Page 2 College Station, Texas Wednesday, February 21, 1973
THE BATTALION
Listen Up
Shuttle Buses, Pro And Con
Editor;
I have watched bemused at the
shuttle bus proposals for some
weeks now, aand can only wonder
why the officially designated
committee to study the proposal
has failed to come up with some
of the information that I, as an
independent and very casual ob
server, have come across. First,
to aid the argument for all-user’s
fee:
I. The more people who ride
the buses, the more parking places
will be available for those who
don’t. Therefore, the entire stu
dent body should be billed for
part of the cost, since it benefits
all. This argument sounds good,
but cannot hold water under the
present and proposed route de
signs. The only way to guarantee
that parking spaces will be saved
is to bus those who live far enough
away so that they have to drive;
such as the students from Cald
well. But even then, car pools
mean that the actual number of
parking spaces saved is only one-
fifth or one-sixth the number of
bus riders. So to save even 1,000
spaces, 5,000 or 6,000 people must
be bused from a distance great
enough to ensure that they could
not arrive on campus by any
means other than a car. To the
extent that this is not being pro
posed, billing the entire student
body is a misallocation of re
sources. No benefits are guaran
teed in any designed way.
II. The only methods of pay
ment which seem to have occurred
to the Senate and to the Commit
tee are student fees and/or user’s
fees. I am truly surprised that
in a free market economy, and
with a student government so
intent on saving us money, that
an obvious thought has not occur
red to them: let advertising pay
part of the cost. If this proposal
seems far fetched, let us consider
only a few examples: all of the
billions of dollars of television
programming are paid for by ad
vertisers; the same for radio; the
same is largely true of most popu
lar magazines. And a shuttle bus
system at California State Univer
sity at San Diego.
^ The entire cost of transporting
over 500 students daily on car-
CADET SLOUCH
peted, rock music playing buses
with free snacks on the ride is
borne by advertisers. And this is
after only one year of operation;
the system is still expanding.
The result: two admobiles plas
tered inside and out with enough
commercial messages to provide a
free ride for students. Each bus is
equipped with an eight-track ste
reo tape player bursting forth
with 300 songs and a friendly
driver who dispenses snacks.
I would like to extract some
hard realities from this example:
I don’t propose carpeted buses,
free snacks or rock music
on the buses, so our per-
unit cost will be less than CSU.
Now let us assume that the entire
$120,000 of the original proposal
will be paid for in ads. Over a
30 week school year, that means
$4,000 a week is needed. Consider
that Bryan-College Station has
over 3,000 businesses. That means
if just 100 of those or about 3
per cent would buy $40 per week
of advertising, then the entire
system would cost us nothing. Of
course, 3 per cent is a rather
minute fraction of businesses. If
10 per cent of the businesses
would buy $13 a week, the system
could be completely supported.
These statistics should take
away the strength of any specula
tion that there is not enough ad
vertising potential here to pay for
even a fraction of the costs of the
system. The point is that the
potential is here. If Transporta
tion Enterprises, Inc. won’t allow
advertising on their buses, let’s
buy our own and save a bundle
of money. There is no reason we
are morally indebted to TEI for
our system.
Advertising can and should pay
a substantial portion of any sys
tem which we adopt. It is feasible
and working. Let’s at least give
it a try. After all, it’s our money.
Mike Perrin ’75
★ ★ ★
Editor:
In response to the letter of Mr.
Randy Stephens in Wednesday’s
Battalion, we felt this letter was
needed in order to rectify several
of the obvious points overlooked
or misunderstood by Mr. Ste
phens.
by Jim Earle
“I don’t like walking through th’ planting, but I’m late
for an ecology meeting!”
In the first place, in his state
ment “we will spend $96,000,” we
think he overlooked the fact that
in the present proposal only $42,-
000 of the Student Services Fee
is allocated for the bus service,
the rest to be paid by the users.
The periphery service that he was
promoting would have added an
additional $24,000 (or more if we
had more than two periphery
buses) to make a minimum Stu
dent Service Fee Allocation of
$66,000.
The next point Mr. Stephens
either missed or didn’t understand
is the fact that if there were on-
campus periphery buses as were
proposed, the faculty and visitors
would not be able to use them
since these buses would be paid
for by the students, and is there
fore unfair to let others ride at
the students’ expense.
The biggest point that we feel
Mr. Stephens has missed is the
timing element involved in an on-
campus bus service. It would take
students much longer to get from
one point to another on campus
due to the numerous stops on the
route and the traffic congestion.
Mr. Stephens should also have
payed closer attention to the
routes which the periphery buses
would have taken. They would
not have gotten any closer to the
Zachry Engineering Center than
the corner of the Petroleum En
gineering, nor would they have
run to the outer parking lots “a
mile or two” away.
In conclusion, not only would
the buses be too costly and strain
students’ already limited time
schedule, they would add conges
tion to an already congested traf
fic situation in regards to auto,
motorcycle, bicycle, and pedes
trian traffic.
The bus proposal will be de
cided upon by the Student Senate
this Thursday night, and I urge
you to contact us or your repre
sentative and voice your opinion.
Ron Miori, Senator
College of Business
Virginia Ehrlich, Treasurer
Student Government
★ ★ ★
Editor:
We are writing to express our
dissatisfaction with the reply of
the Student “Y” Association’s
Viewpoint Panel. In the reply it
was explicitly stated that many
Aggie males refuse to date Mag
gies because of fear of being re
jected. We find this totally ab
surd.
While this may be true for a
few individuals, the majority of
the Aggies don’t date often be
cause, 1) they already have girl
Counselor And
Cabinet Forms
Ready At ‘Y’
Applications for Fish Camp
Counselors and Student “Y” As
sociation Cabinet positions are
available in Room 102 of the
YMCA Building.
Fish Camp Counselor appli
cants are interviewed by the pres
ent Student “Y” Cabinet and, if
selected, will be notified the week
after spring break, according to
Barbra Cowan, Vice President of
Public Relations.
They will receive information
about the camp at the Election
Steak Fry, April 12.
Student “Y” Association Cab
inet applicants are interviewed
by a committee who will nominate
12 applicants for the positions.
The nominees will also be noti
fied the week after spring break.
All applicants will still be el
igible for the election held at the
steak fry but the emphasis will
be placed on the 12 nominees.
Deadlines for interviews are
March 2 for Fish Camp Counselor
applicants and March 9 for Stu
dent “Y” Association Cabinet
candidates.
Cbe Battalion
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EDITOR
News Editor
Women’s Editor
Sports Editor
Assistant Sports Editor
... MIKE RICE
Rod Speer
Janet Landers
Bill Henry
. Kevin Coffey
friends at other locations, 2) they
are more interested in using their
energy towards expanding their
minds than in wasting it chasing
after the whimsical Maggie, 3)
no Maggie might particularly ap
peal to them, 4) an Aggie may
lack the funds and time to com
pete with his fellow Ag’s, and
5) a good percentage of Ag
gies have had experiences in hav
ing relationships shattered be
cause of the unnatural ratio of
boys and girls.
In conclusion we would like to
state that we are not being criti
cal of the individual Maggie, but
we just resent being called cow
ards because we fail to chase
after them to their pleasing.
Vance Driscoll ’75
Randy Cates ’75
Gene Barta ’75
★ ★ ★
Editor:
Saturday night I was, along
with several hundred others,
amused by the NORML flick,
“Reefer Madness”. One thing
baffled me about the show, how
ever. One of the characters
stated, on at least two occasions,
that marijuana was especially
dangerous because it grew wild
in all 50 states. Can anyone ex
plain how, if this flick was made
in 1936, could they have known
about Alaska and Hawaii ?
It was still a funny flick.
Charles Haltom
NOW BETTER THAN EVER BEFORE. YOU
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GRAVY
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THURSDAY EVENING SPECIAL
ITALIAN CANDLELIGHT DINNER — ITALIAN SPAGHETTI
, SERVED WITH SPICED MEAT BALLS AND SAUCE ^ A
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a Choice of Salad Dressing - Hot Garlic Bread
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You cannot believe you get, “The Whole Thing,” for $1.09
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w/CHILI
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Choice of one
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Served with
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One vegetable.
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EVERYDAY PRICES
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ets Goon
rtfe •
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MEAT DEPT
ALL QUAM1IU
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WILSON CERT-I-SELECT % SLICED
PORK
LOIN
LB.
KRAFT
BAR-B-Q SAUCE
39 c - ^
18 OZ.
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1 Pitcher Pack)
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SAVE 40° WHEN YOU BUY *
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WITH THIS COUPON
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Limit 1 With $7.50 p£r’ c "
14000 THRU 2-^2-T.
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Idll.v V 2 Gal. S(|. C'tn.
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PATIO MEXICAN
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27 Apothecary
Jar
By Charles M.
I FIND IT DIFFICULT TO 3ELiev , £
THAT HE WAS CALLED TO THE
WHITE COURTED TELEPHONE.