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Three months after Transportation Services changed campus shuttle routes, unhappy students are wondering if planners considered student concerns in their decisions, while officials maintain the department has been responsive to student input in other areas of on-campus transportation.

The changes in the shuttle routes included eliminating the Ackerman Express shuttle and creating a Wilshire Express route, as well as a complete redesign of the main campus shuttle route.

Renee Fortier, director of Transportation Services, cited the desire to create less waiting time for students between buses and the need to add a new stop at the Weyburn Terrace Graduate Student Housing, which opens this fall, as the reasons behind the change.

But some students are unhappy with the changes, and the majority of the complaints have been about stops which were eliminated, especially a stop located by Ackerman Student Union. About 1.2 million rides are taken on the shuttles each year, predominantly by undergraduates.

Queen Thach, a fourth-year psycho- biology student, said she liked that the old routes had more stops than the new ones, but did prefer the speediness of one of the new routes.

Because the new Wilshire route only has three stops, it takes slightly less time to get to school from the Wilshire Center, an area located south of the corner of Wilshire and Midvale.

The Wilshire Center was previously serviced by the main campus shuttle, which had five stops on the northbound route and six on the southbound route.

But Thach said she preferred the old main campus route because it went to Wilshire in addition to more campus destinations.

The only on-campus stop on the new Wilshire Center shuttle is by parking Lot 2; whereas the old campus shuttle stopped at several locations in North Campus.

During the planning process, Fortier would not share details of the route changes until they were finalized. Some students said this seemed to eliminate any opportunity for student input into the planning process.

The secrecy behind the route change left many students asking how — and if — Transportation Services considered student opinion in their decisions.

Fortier cited a two-day shuttle ridership survey the department conducted in January, which recorded where riders were boarding and exiting the bus, and a consultation with the Transportation Services Advisory Board, a group on which one undergraduate and one graduate student representative serve, as the connections between students and the department.

Still, Joe Vardner, the undergraduate representative on the board, said that Transportation Services did not give as much opportunity for input as city and state transportation agencies typically do.

Sam Corbett, manager of planning and analysis for Transportation Services, said town hall meetings, public workshops, community meetings, and other organized public forums are a big part of the transportation planning process of government agencies. He has worked with transportation departments at other universities as well as with government agencies around the country.

Corbett said the universities he worked at previously operated more “autonomously” than other governmental agencies, but added he has not been at UCLA long enough to comment on UCLA Transportation Services.

In city and state agencies, many of the people who make decisions are elected officials. The people who are affected by these decisions may have more sway because officials are often concerned with re-election.

On the university level, students usually do not have such influence.

Vardner also believes finances played a role in the decision-making process for Transportation Services.

“Transportation Services, like housing, is under the business wing of UCLA,” Vardner said. “Money is definitely much more of a factor than it is in some other departments, such as academic departments.”

The shuttles will cost Transportation Services $2.1 million to operate for the 2004-2005 year, compared to about $2.3 million last year.

The shuttles, like all transportation programs, are funded entirely by revenue from parking permits and parking programs. Transportation Services does not receive any money from the state, and is not directly affected by the budget cuts.

Vardner said unlike academic departments that have specific educational goals in mind when changing their programs or services, the transportation department has only one general requirement: to handle transportation.

Fortier agreed that money was a factor in the shuttle changes.

“It is never an easy thing to try to reduce budgets,” she said in an e-mail. “The new routes provide service to all areas of campus within a couple of blocks’ walk, while allowing parking fees to remain at previously-projected levels.”

“In this time of great budgetary constraints it would have not been the right thing to do to make no attempt to streamline service and thus to impact parking fees; rather this is the time for all campus units to make services more cost-effective,” Fortier added.

While money may be a critical factor for some departments on campus, other departments, both at UCLA and other universities, choose to make public opinion a priority.

For example, the dorms issue questionnaires every quarter which ask students to rate various aspects of housing, including dorm life and dorm food.

Transportation departments at other universities also incorporate community input. The UC’s Santa Barbara campus, for example, held a public forum about a proposal to start charging people for weekend parking.

While some were unhappy with lack of student input regarding changes in the shuttle routes at UCLA, others have been pleased with the department’s efforts in another project: developing a bicycle master plan.

After facing sharp criticism for failing to include any provisions for bicyclists in their portion of the university’s Long Range Development Plan – which guides the school’s development over a ten year period – Transportation Services agreed to work with a campus bicyclist committee to make bicycling to campus a more viable option for students and staff.

Todd Nelson, last year’s president of the Bicycle Advocacy Committee, said in March 2003 he was not satisfied with the rate of progress in developing the plan.

But since then, James Black, new president of the bike group, said progress has improved. Black said he believes there will be better communication between his group and Transportation Services through having monthly meetings. He also said the department seemed to be incorporating the bike group’s recommendations.

Transportation Services recently finished getting student input on the bicycle plans through another venue – a MyUCLA survey.

The bike survey asked for student input on bicycle amenities the department was exploring, such as bike lockers or discounted access to shower facilities.

Corbett said the department will definitely use the survey as they evaluate these amenities.

Transportation will probably conduct a similar, opinion-based survey of the campus shuttles this year, which will ask students how the shuttles can be improved, Corbett said.