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July 31, 2000
Purdue expands free CityBus rides
for faculty, staff, retirees
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – Purdue University faculty, staff and retirees will be able to ride for free on any CityBus route in Greater Lafayette, an expansion of an effort begun last fall to relieve traffic and housing congestion in Greater Lafayette.
When classes began last fall, faculty and staff could ride campus routes or the shuttle to Ross-Ade Stadium or Tower Acres for free. Starting Aug. 21, all three groups can ride for free on all CityBus routes.
Purdue will contribute about $932,000 toward the cost of the service, said Charles E. Sharp, director of service enterprise for physical facilities. Of that, $50,000 covers the cost of service to faculty, staff and retirees; the rest of the payment is for continuing bus service for students, who last year began riding all CityBus routes for free. CityBus will allocate $332,000 of its federal capital funds for Purdue projects to promote the ease of ridership, such as additional pull-offs, shelters and park-and-ride lots.
No extra student fee being assessed to cover the costs, said Kenneth P. Burns, Purdue executive vice president and treasurer.
"Purdue is investing in this program to reduce the traffic in the community and to make it more attractive for students who choose to live off campus to find housing further away from the university," Burns said. "If we achieve that, then we reduce congestion for the entire community."
So far, it appears that the Purdue community is taking advantage of the free service, he said.
For the six-month period ending June 30, ridership of all kinds increased 64.5 percent to 1.46 million, said Marty Sennett, general manager for CityBus.
CityBus serves all of Lafayette, West Lafayette and Purdue, and extends into Tippecanoe County, reaching places such as Tippecanoe Mall, Klondike Road, and Indiana 26 and I-65. A full listing of routes is available at the CityBus Web site. Route and schedule information is also available at the bus depot in downtown Lafayette, the Purdue Visitor Information Center (both the main location and in the Purdue Memorial Union), all University Residences and Greater Lafayette Bank One locations.
Five CityBus routes serve the Purdue campus. All routes make stops at various locations around the academic campus. The Silver and Gold loops provide service to University Residences during the day, while the Black Loop provides nighttime service. The Bronze Loop serves the area bounded by Union, Ninth, Brown and Fourth streets as well as the campus. The River Road Shuttle also provides service to campus.
CityBus also provides shuttle service from Hilltop Apartments and Tower Acres. The Ross-Ade Stadium north parking lot will serve as the park-and-ride lot, with a shuttle service at 7:20 a.m., 7:40 a.m. and then every 10 minutes after that until to 6 p.m. weekdays. Most of the 900 spaces at the stadium parking lot will be available to holders of A, B or C parking permits.
Although service frequency and times vary for each route, other buses generally will run Mondays through Fridays from 6 a.m. to as late as 11 p.m. The service is more limited on Sundays. However, the Black Loop, which will serve the campus and housing areas as well as the Chauncey Hill and Levee commercial areas, will have more extensive hours for the weekends, running until 2:30 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday and midnight for the rest of the week.
To ride free, Purdue faculty, staff, retirees and student need only to show their Purdue identification cards.
Sources: Charles E. Sharp, (765) 494-7102; cesharp@purdue.edu
Kenneth P. Burns, (765) 494-9705; kpburns@purdue.edu
Marty Sennett, (765) 423-2666
Writer: J. Michael Willis, (765) 494-0371; mwillis@purdue.edu
Purdue News Service: (765) 494-2096; purduenews@purdue.edu
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