You can stop looking around Spaulding’s Parking and Transportation office for them. You can stop asking your friends about it. You can stop planning those free late night trips to Elmwood and beyond—you’re not getting those unlimited bus passes the NFTA promised you.

You’re stuck finding your own way around town again this year.

This spring, as was published in The Spectrum (April 14, 2006) and republished this June in their orientation issue, NFTA officials were set to unveil unlimited metro passes at $25 per semester to 3,000 University at Buffalo students. The College/University Unlimited Access Program provides use of Buffalo’s public buses and metro line to four other Buffalo colleges. UB would have been the fifth.

The NFTA deal promised extended transportation routes to regional shopping centers as well as bus service downtown on weekends until 4 a.m. This service would have guaranteed students transportation to and from local nightclubs on Chippewa and the Elmwood strip, hotspots for local nightlife. However, to the shock of the plan’s supporters like Student Association Vice President Leslie Meister, NFTA backed out of the deal.

“It would be great to have [the passes],” said Meister. “We worked hard last year and thought we had them…”

In other words, commuter students, start your engines.

According to the NFTA, their original deal was no longer what they had in mind. “Across the country, entire schools participate,” said NFTA Director of Public Affairs Doug Hartmayer, “It’s not an opt-in program. We wanted all of the freshman class [to participate], or a certain segment [of the university].”

Allowing UB to participate in an opt-in system would be unfair to other area schools, Hartmayer says. All students at Buffalo State, Canisius, Medaille, and Bryant &Stratton colleges are automatically enrolled in the program for $25 each.

The new program offered to UB required all students to sign on to the program, or at least a section as large as the entire undergraduate class. To have the entire undergraduate college sign up would have cost the student body about $800,000 per semester—a huge sum of money considering it was unknown as to how many students were even interested.

That type of investment just didn’t make sense to Chris Austin, transportation coordinator for Parking and Transportation Services at UB. “We didn’t think it was a good deal for all students to invest into the program, seeing as we didn’t know how many students were interested. We wanted to gauge its feasibility.”

And, according to Austin, throwing 18,000 students into a program without knowing who would use it wasn’t only a bad deal, it was irresponsible.

Looking at the numbers, UB has an enrollment nearly three times the size of Buffalo State, roughly six times the size of Canisius, and ten times that of Medaille. Furthermore, these three are schools located in the center of the city, surrounded by public transportation. UB’s North Campus, where most of the undergraduate students live and study, isn’t on the metro line, and only one NFTA bus stops there.

UB Parking and Transportation and the Student Association have denounced the NFTA’s decision and say they will not agree to the new proposal.

UB is not new to the idea of transportation reform. According to articles published in The Reporter in 1996, a student-run “Rideshare” program was on its way to completion. With the support of the NFTA, students would be notified of other students living in their area and would be encouraged to start a carpool. The idea eventually faded.

Students and faculty at UB drive about 140 million miles per year to and from campus, according to UB Green’s Jim Simon and UB’s greenhouse gas emissions inventory. To get them there, students used nearly five million gallons of fuel. UB faculty and staff used approximately 1.5 million gallons.

According to Jim Simon, those numbers could be greatly cut down if students were compelled to use public transportation.

“If people started taking [public transportation] for free, it would take a lot of strain off parking, and a lot of strain off the environment.” That’s certainly clear, but it’s impossible to say how many people would have utilized the system without a trial run.

One surefire way to enact change, he says, is to make the student voice heard. “We can’t say ‘let’s move on.’ We’re beyond that. Everyone can’t just drive their own car to campus.” Instead, Simon recommends individual action. “It’s going to take students, staff, and faculty to talk. If they go to Dennis Black, President Simpson…if they write letters, it will happen.”

Student Association officials were banking on the trial run of the program, working for years to set it in motion. Two orientation sessions were set up by UB Parking and Transportation, on April 17 and 18, consisting of question and answer sessions and a presentation by NFTA officials. Various incentives were explained, including expanded bus routes and services.

“It was a win/win situation for the community at large,” said Director of Parking and Transportation services Maria Wallace. “We were all very excited.”

But Wallace explained that even before the meetings began, something was already awry. “Two hours before [their first presentation], the NFTA said they could no longer offer the deal. They were interested in promoting another program.” With Wallace’s insistence, NFTA verbally agreed to go through with the original deal as planned.

Not for long.

After a week, the deal was off. “They came into my office and said they couldn’t offer the opt-in program,” Wallace said.

The deal on the table at that point was that all undergraduate students would have to join the program at the original rate, with a $75,000 grant offered to lower the price marginally. The total price of the program was then over $700,000 a semester.

To explain the logistics of the program, Wallace reiterated her conversation with NFTA. “Let’s assume that this is a great idea and 26,000 students sign up and 15,000 want to use it. Is the NFTA prepared for that?”

The answer from the NFTA, she said, was that “‘not that many people will be interested.’ They know they won’t get that many students.”

Perhaps the most compelling part of the deal was the various perks offered to students through the deal. A late night bus downtown until 4 a.m. would be useful in deterring students from expensive taxi fare, or worse, a drive home drunk.

Vera Neroni, a sophomore biomedical studies major and Governors resident, can understand that problem. She’s learned her lesson about public buses, stating, “I go out with friends who have cars. The bus doesn’t always come on time.” She remembers horror stories of last year, walking blocks through the snow in her heels to arrive at her destination. “With an unlimited pass, I’d go to shows downtown a lot more. It’s hard to get there now.” She said regular NFTA service won’t do her much good, “I usually stay out past midnight.” Most days the metro line only stays open until then, leaving students stranded downtown on weekend nights.

Jim Taylor, a UB student, would not sacrifice his night trips downtown. To get home at night, he takes taxis, costing over $20 per trip. “They’d make a lot of money on the system, I don’t know why they stop [at midnight],” he said.

Additionally, NFTA offered shuttle service between North and South Campus for UB; a service currently served by UB’s privately contracted “UB Stampede.” Maria Wallace said that a takeover wouldn’t have been a possibility. “Daily, we have 20 buses running at the same time. NFTA couldn’t provide service without other stops…they don’t have the capacity.” While there had been talks of NFTA taking over the shuttle in the past, Wallace said, they couldn’t take over the more than 2.5 million individual rides the student body takes each year.

So, for students that take public transportation to get to school, two choices remain: pay $65 per month for a standard NFTA pass or buy a ticket each day, with neither seeming to be the better deal. Either way, no change to the current transportation system appears to be getting closer.

The future of the program is unsure, according to Wallace. “We sent a letter to the NFTA telling them it was too late for fall, and that our intent remains for an opt-in system.”

Doug Hartmayer holds his ground as well. “We would like UB as a partner. We’d like to talk anytime about spring or fall of 2007.”

Seems simple, doesn’t it? A story of dollars and cents where the student hangs in the balance. For now, it’s a lot of talk for two organizations with no problem standing perfectly still. It’s only a question of how long UB students leave them alone before pushing them together themselves.