Global Ambassador Stories

How Do I Get There? Transportation at Purdue

Story by Akane Ota
February 03, 2021

Hi, my name is Akane. I'm a PhD student in Forestry and the Global Ambassador representing Japan. In this video, I'll be talking about how I get around the Greater Lafayette area.

As a PhD student, I spend a lot of time taking classes and doing research but of course I have to go to grocery shopping and I sometimes hang out with friends in a restaurant, cafe or other places. And the question is how do I get to those places?

The simplest would be if you have a car. That's easy to go around the city, but as an international student we don't have a car when we come to the U.S. I would actually consider buying a car if you're a PhD student being here for four to five years, it's worth it. But there are some transportation options in the city.

The first and the easiest option is biking. The city of West Lafayette and Lafayette also is friendly to bikers so as long as you're a careful biker, having a helmet on, that should be able to take you to pretty much any places in the city. It's also environmentally friendly.

The second option is car sharing. Purdue is tied up with car sharing companies and it's easier than renting a car because the cars are already parked around the campus. And you just need to book the car in advance, go pick it up, and drive around, come back, and park at the same place. So if you're for example planning the day on weekend, wanting to do multiple grocery shopping and do some runs, that's probably the better and cheaper option than renting a car.

The third option is the City Bus. With West Lafayette and Lafayette together operate the City Bus service. They cover not only the popular places on campus but a lot of destinations around the town. The good thing is it's free for Purdue students and they operate on weekend as well. So if your destination falls within the bus route, why not taking the bus as well.

In this video, I introduced three ways to get around the town and hopefully that was helpful for you. But I'm sure that there are more options out there so please let me know if you find any other options other than these three.


The views of the author are not necessarily those of the Grad School or Purdue University.