After a frigid 15-minute walk to the Buffalo subway station, Andrew Then, a senior business major at the University at Buffalo, realized he was 50 cents short for a $1.50 one way ticket to get to campus. On a regular day of class, he most likely would have hiked back to his apartment to sleep the day away, but on this day he had an exam.
Fail a final exam or run the risk of receiving a ticket. Andrew chose the ticket.
He made it three stops before an attendant approached him for the verification of his subway stub, at which point he was quickly escorted from the Metro rail and received a ticket. Twenty minutes and a $20 ticket later, he made it to his exam.
Andrew’s case illustrates a complaint that many commuting UB students have echoed. Buffalo State College, Medaille, Canisius, and Bryant and Straton get free transportation throughout the Buffalo Niagara area, including free rides to and from their campuses and the downtown Chippewa district, while UB students are left in the dust, scrounging up money for taxi cabs, bus rides, and sometimes even resorting to drunk driving.
It remains to be seen whether UB will work out an agreement with the city’s public transit authority or if there is just not enough interest or need for a student service program at our school. For now, though, it seems UB students who want to get downtown will be faced with the choice of either staying in for the night or shelling out the cash for a ticket to ride.
The Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority (NFTA) came up with the program The Late Night Express for students with the Metro Xtras Card, a student pass that every student at the participating schools receives, which allows them to commute via the Metro rail and bus for free. The Late Night Express runs on Friday and Saturday nights from 10 p.m. to 4 a.m. It is available to the public, but UB students are charged for the service and are not driven back to campus like students at the other schools.
While UB’s transportation department is making strides to satisfy UB students, it basically comes down to the voice of the students. “They are starting to survey students regarding their interest in purchasing a pass for $25 for the Metro,” said Renee Giacomazza, a clerk at UB’s transportation department. “If it is something they are interested in, it will be implemented in the future.” The survey is available on UB’s website through MyUB’s My Opinions page.
The NFTA metro rail has 15 subway stations dispersed along a 6.2-mile stretch of Main Street that extends from the University Station in front of UB’s South Campus to the HSBC arena downtown.
According to the NFTA’s website, nfta.com, they transport about 94,000 people a day by use of their 332 buses, 27 rails cars, 35 vans, and four trolley-buses. “The Metro travels 8.9 million miles in a single year, helping the region save gas, reduce traffic congestion, and preserve a clean environment.”
Marcin Polakowski, a junior fine arts major at Buff State, uses his Xtras card sporadically, but still finds it beneficial. “I live in the Elmwood district and am currently without a car,” he said. “While I don’t use the Metro rail [or] bus on a regular basis, it’s nice to have the option of using my Xtras card and not have to worry about paying the fees. I know a lot of Buff State students who do use their card on a daily basis and are saving a lot of money.”
Not all students share Polakowski’s optimism about the program’s benefits.
“It would be a waste of UB students’ money to pay the fees for a discount pass,” said Andrew Then, the senior business major at UB. “It would only benefit the students who use the Metro rail or bus to commute, which the majority of students just do not use.”
A lot of students were unaware that such a pass for the surrounding colleges and universities even existed. Upon hearing about the services offered, most at least expressed interest.
“I would defenitely use the NFTA’s weekend program,” said Theresa Gugger, a senior speech and hearing science major at UB. “My friends and I often want to go downtown, but do not want to pay for a cab, and we generally don’t have anyone offering to be a designated driver.”
The Metro rail system has never been perfect. Rail service stops as late as half past midnight, while the bars stay open until 4 a.m. So, while the train could provide students with a safe ride downtown, it leaves them stranded without a ride home if they want to stay until closing time.
David Crook, customer service supervisor for the NFTA, claims the Metro rail doesn’t stay open later on the weekends because they have not seen the need for it. He feels it would be a waste of the NFTA’s money to keep it running if there are limited amounts of people that would be using it that late at night.
However, if UB had an Xtras pass program, there could potentially be an influx of hundreds of UB students riding the Metro every weekend who would normally use other means to get to and from the bars on Chippewa or in Allentown. The service would save a lot of the students from the hassles and fees of downtown parking and, more importantly, from driving home drunk.
It seems that the NFTA Metro rail will remain an untapped resource for safe transportation for the time being. When it comes to UB students commuting downtown, the only options most kids have are driving themselves, paying the hefty fees of a taxi cab, or biting the bullet for a relaxing—and boring—night at home.
