Page 8
THE BATTALION
WEDNESDAY, MAY 7, 1980
Prices go up at Texas A&M
Other shuttle buses cheaper
by JERRY MAZE
Battalion StafT
Increasing fuel, parts and labor
costs have led to Texas A&M Univer
sity’s shuttle bus riders paying more
for shuttle bus passes for the 1980-81
school year. But two other schools
have found a way to decrease the cost
of the service per student.
For the upcoming school year,
shuttle bus riders will be faced with a
26 percent price increase for student
passes, from $30 to $38. The price of
student-spouse passes will rise from
$45 to $55, a 22 percent increase,
and faculty-staff passes increase 25
percent, from $40 to $50.
Texas A&M contracts the shuttle
bus service from Transportation En
terprises Incorporated (TEI), the
same company that provides shuttle
service for the University of Texas at
Austin and Southwest Texas State
University in San Marcos.
Brady Burnett, branch manager of
TEI, said Texas A&M uses 28 buses
per day in its system, each bus aver
aging just over nine hours of service,
or 254 hours total per day.
For the present school year, Bur
nett said, about 7,500 people are rid
ing the buses.
The service currently costs Texas
A&M $14.30 an hour per bus, Bur
nett said. But the cost to Texas A&M
will increase by 18.8 percent, to $17
per hour in the fall, plus $1.30 per
hour fuel adjustment.
He said TEI must increase its
charge to offset the current 18 per
cent inflation rate and the price of
fuel, which has doubled in the past
year.
He said TEI has also raised its base
pay rate by 12 percent since August
to insure getting quality drivers that
can be responsible for getting stu
dents to class on time.
He said the pay rate will probably
increase to 21 percent in the next
year because having good drivers
and maintenance personnel is essen
tial to the success of the service and
the longevity of the buses.
Burnett said shuttle buses remain
the most economical means of trans
portation available to students, even
with the rate increase.
It costs riders 47.5 cents per day to
use the buses, Burnett said, no mat
ter how many times they ride.
He said the buses allow students
to come to campus an indefinite
number of times each day for half the
price of a gallon of gasoline, and they
do not have to find a place to park.
Burnett said these'rates 1 will allow
TEI to provide a regular, depend
able service for Texas A&M — until
operational costs go up again.
“Although I wish the price didn’t
have to go up to the students,” he
said, “it is going to, and I think they’ll
be able to afford it.
“It might defer ridership some;
but I hope it does not.’’
One alternative to paying higher
prices for shuttle service is being
used at the University of Texas,
where students pay for the service as
part of their registration fee.
Students are charged a $1.98 shut
tle bus fee for every semester hour
they take. All students pay the fee
and the maximum charge to anyone
is $23.50, or the equivalent of taking
12 hours.
Doyle Stone, vice president for
operations at TEI in Austin, said,
“Because of the number of people
and the congestion we have, every
body benefits whether they ride or
not.
“There is occasionally something
said about everyone having to pay,
but there are no violent objections. ”
Stone said the University of Texas
system operates 55 buses each day
with 500 total service hours.
The system, Stone said, is simple
because students do not need a pass,
only their I. D. card to prove they are
students.
At Southwest Texas State Univer
sity, students pay $7 each for the
shuttle service and do not have to
display a pass of any kind to the
drivers.
Joan Baron, assistant director of
auxiliary services at SWTSU, said
everyone being able to ride the
buses has not created problems be
cause the buses run only to areas
heavily populated by students and
return directly to campus, making
them inconvenient for any non
students.
The SWTSU system consists of 10
buses at a school of 17,000 students.
Baron said the only complaints
come from students who do not use
the service and feel they are paying
for other people’s service.
At both schools, faculty or anyone
else may ride the buses by paying $7
at SWTSU and the ceiling price of
$23.50 at Texas.
Burnett said such systems are not
seen in the near future at Texas A&M
because of University administra
tors’ reluctance.
Having worked for three years in
the Austin system, Burnett said the
system encourages students to use
the buses because they are paying for
them anyway and the result is less
demand for parking spaces on
campus.
He said the routes in College Sta
tion could be easily modified to facili
tate nearly all on-campus student
traveling within the city, giving
them more use of the service.
By adding a stop at Culppepper
Plaza, he said, students could be
given access to stores and entertain
ment. The cost, Burnett said, under
such a system would be $10 per stu
dent.
Eugene Oates, chairman of the
shuttle bus operations committee,
said, “The shuttle bus committee re
viewed the possibility of having a
system like the ones at Austin and
San Marcos, but they decided it was
not just to make students pay for a
service they would not use. ”
He said the shuttle bus service at
Texas A&M is subsidized 20 percent
out of student service fees, and if this
support is ever lost a new plan might
have to be sought.
Oates said the policies and sche
dules, with the exception of the new
prices, of the shuttle bus system will
remain as they are now for the fall
semester.
Spring brings snakes out
The warm spring weather that is bringing Texans
out of their homes into the countryside is also bringing
snakes out of their winter dens.
When man and snake come together, it usually
means trouble, said a Texas A&M University wildlife
specialist.
Each year more than 2,400 people are bitten by
snakes, both poisonous and nonpoisonous, explained
Charles Ramsey, but fortunately, the incidence of
poisonous snakebites is rare.
The death rate from snakebites is even lower — less
than 1 percent of the snakebite victims — and most
people will recover quickly without side effects, Ram
sey said.
If bitten by any type of snake, try not to panic,
advises Ramsey. Bites of harmless snakes do not pro
duce immediate swelling, discoloration, intense burn
ing or any of the other symptoms normally associate!
with poisonous snakebites, he said.
Indeed, probably the best advice is to leam to iden
tify the poisonous snakes and leave them alone, said
the Texas A&M specialist.
“Snakes are rarely aggressive toward humans,
said. “If you encounter a snake, just walk
leave it alone,” he said.
“If necessary, an average person can outrun a
aggressive snake,” he added.
Poisonous snakes in Texas considered to
ous to humans include species from two families: pit
vipers such as rattlesnakes, copperheads and cotton
mouths, and cobra-like snakes including the
snake.
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