New bus route added for weekend convenience

By AMANDA WALDE

DeKALB | The Huskie Bus Line now has an additional two routes for evening transportation to reduce lag on previous routes.

John Roach, operations manager for Veolia Transportation, said the weekend circle left and circle right routes will no longer be responsible for covering so much ground.

“The weekend routes that run in the evening through the week covered a lot of area and simply couldn’t do it in 30 minutes,” Roach said. “We came up with the idea to add a new route, circle north and circle south, that covers the same area as routes 1 and 5. With this new system we were able to turn the weekend routes back into 30-minute travel durations, while still heading out to Northern View.”

Although the concern of long-running late-night routes has been addressed, some students still take issue with the unreliable GPS system.

Raj Nair, a graduate student studying public health, said she is pleased with the new circle north route but is frustrated with the GPS system that is rarely a service to her.

“The circle north takes me exactly where I need to go in a reasonable amount of time, which is very helpful when studying at night,” Nair said. “I never rely on the GPS system anymore because in the time it takes for me to find out where my bus is, it has already gone by. The screens at the student center never show me where the weekend bus is either.”

Roach said the Huskie Bus Line is working in part with the Holmes Student Center to fix the tracking of the weekend routes.

Phil Burn, a bus driver for four of the bus routes, suggests that students become familiar with their routes if they cannot use the GPS.

“I hear students complaining all of the time that they don’t know how to use the GPS system,” Burn said. “They need to educate themselves to gain a better understanding of their routes.”