Students who once huddled next to each other for warmth as they waited for a bus to come barreling down the street now have a new boarding center on Shaw Lane to keep them toasty and dry.
The Capital Area Transportation Center was scheduled to open Aug. 19, offering a number of services the average rectangular glass-windowed bus stop and bench don’t.
“It brings a showcase place for public transportation,” said Debbie Alexander, assistant executive director of the Capital Area Transportation Authority. “I’m hoping it’s going to be a warm, welcoming place.”
The station will be a perk for some students who use the bus more frequently in the winter time. CATA contributed $1.6 million to the project, which has a price tag estimated at $3 million.
There also will be a new parking ramp located on Shaw Lane to replace the ramp that used to exist in its spot. This is included in the $11 million Shaw Hall renovation project.
A Sparty’s Convenience Store will be just one of the amenities students can use there in the 2003-04 school year.
Green-light telephones will be available for students who need to make late-night calls to Night Owl, the transportation service for those who need a ride in the wee hours of the night.
“It will be a safe place for people to transfer,” Alexander said.
There also will be a CATA office there, but the person at the desk won’t be for customer services.
“She will continue to perform the same duties she always had, she’s just located there,” Alexander said. “Her primary responsibility is to do future planning.”
The center also will provide bathrooms, an ATM, and route and schedule information and some sort of vending area.
“We haven’t decided what that will be yet,” Alexander said.
This is a major perk to students who live far away from classes and want a snack in between classes, agricultural economics graduate student Lulama Traub said.
“I would use the convenience store a lot,” she said.
Not only that, but there will be a community-policing office in the boarding center as well.
This fall returning students will pay more for bus passes with an increase ranging from $1.50 to $5. A student semester pass for the 2001-2002 year was $40, but now costs $45. Monthly passes increased from $12.50 in 2001-02 to $14.
Alexander said the area used as the transfer center at Shaw and Farm lanes will still be used as a boarding center, but only for the busses that go off campus.
Ashish Gollapalli, an electrical engineering senior said he wished the center was available when he rode CATA as an underclassman.
“It will be nicer to students to have those benefits,” he said, and that having a CATA official will be very useful to students with bus route questions.
“The whole bus system is confusing,” he said.
