Students will be paying for a new fleet of buses if the mass transit board has their way.

The Student Association Mass Transit Board plans to ask students for a 50 percent busing fee increase over the next five years for 13 new buses with wheelchair lifts on them.

The board decided to reject three cheaper options that would involve purchasing less buses. Board members decided instead that buying a new fleet would be the least expensive in the long run.

“This is plain dollar and cents business,” board member Gary Jones said. “It’s going to cost a heck of a lot more money if we wait until the last minute.”

The new buses would comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act requiring all public areas and transportation to be accessible to the disabled in seven years.

“Now, disabled (persons) are able to ride with every other human being who rides the buses,” said Todd Allen, mass transit executive director.

The five year budget planned by Rick Schaschwary, SAMTB financial adviser, includes gradual fee increases from the current $2.98 per credit hour to an estimated $4.55 per credit hour in 1995.

The largest jump in fees will be next year where Schaschwary recommended $3.54 per credit hour, or $42.48 per semester for a full-time student with 12 or more hours.

Full-time students paid $35.76 for bus service this semester.

The exact rules that the ADA will give to buses will not be clear until they are made public in July, but board members decided to be safe rather than sorry with fully equipped buses.

“Regardless of what they (ADA officials) come down with, you know we are covered the whole nine yards,” Schaschwary said.

Board members also decided buying new buses would be cheaper than buying more expensive buses in the future. Furthermore, a new fleet would replace Huskie buses as they near their 20-year-old life expectancy.

Schaschwary said the $3.54 per credit hour fee for next year will have to be approved by NIU’s Presidential Fee Study Committee and the Board of Regents before the raise is official.

He said the fee committee has been open to a justified fee increase. “But to say what their feelings are, I don’t know,” Schaschwary said. “They could swing either way until the last minute.”

Gary Jones, SAMTB board member