The Late Night Ride Service is being taken advantage of by students and an increase in use is expected.

Steve Lawrence, student director of Late Night Ride Service, gave statistics at the Student Association Mass Transit Board meeting Thursday for the first few weeks of service. Since the beginning of the semester, a total of 187 rides have been given. Lawrence said, “about 70 percent of the rides are from Greek Row to the dorms.” He said these are pretty normal figures for this point in time, but that numbers will increase once the snow and cold come back.

New SAMTB Adviser Mikki Anderson stated that her greatest priority is to increase awareness of the Late Night Ride Service. She said she would like to increase the distribution of fliers and also increase announcements about the service. “I’m sick of reading about all these DUI’s in Police Beat,” she said.

Anderson was appointed and approved for her position last Sunday at the SA Senate meeting. She took over for Christi Kret who withdrew from the position at the end of this summer, but stayed long enough to help usher in her replacement.

In other business, a possible cooperative relationship between the Freedom Mobile and TransVac, which offers nearly the same services to the physically disabled, was discussed. In case the Freedom Mobile needs services, SAMTB is looking into leasing TransVac vehicles.

SAMTB Fiscal Adviser Janet Potter recently went to an Illinois Paratransit meeting in Springfield. She said the purpose of the trip was to become more informed about Section 18 funding from the federal government for paratransit services.

Potter stated city sponsorship is needed to qualify for the funding, and also mentioned the difficulty in obtaining DeKalb sponsorship. She also said funding from the federal government has been drastically cut for the sponsorships. She said it might be very difficult to get the funding.