LSU’s Garden District bus route has for the last six months faced an on-again, off-again existential crisis. 

On one hand, Parking and Transportation Services, the department that runs Tiger Trails, has repeatedly attempted to shut down the line. A dedicated group of riders, on the other hand, have repeatedly fought to preserve it. 

Carlos Reina-Flores, a 30-year-old studying pre-cardiopulmonary science at LSU, learned in early November that Parking and Transportation planned to terminate the line at the end of the fall semester. 

This wasn’t the first time.

In fact, Parking and Transportation had already successfully shut down the Garden District route once before, just weeks prior to the start of the fall semester in August. 

News of that first cancellation came quietly in mid-July, catching students by surprise and leaving many who depended on the line in the lurch. 

According to then Director of Parking and Transportation Brian Favela, his department’s choice to suspend the route came as a cost-saving measure. The Garden District line was “underutilized”, he said.

For Reina-Flores, the route’s termination was a disaster. 

In 2013, Reina-Flores was hit by a car while riding his bicycle. The accident broke his jaw, his ankle, damaged his respiratory tract, his heart and left him with a traumatic brain injury. 

“What can I say?” he told the Reveille in December. “I am a person with disabilities.” 

Today, Reina-Flores’ limited mobility means getting from one place to another independently is a challenge. He can’t legally drive a car or safely ride a bicycle.

In May, Reina-Flores moved from Honduras to live with his grandmother in Baton Rouge in order to attend LSU. 

“Before anything, before joining anything I was looking for to go, my grandmother told me, ‘Come to LSU. There’s a direct bus from my house, from the Garden District to LSU.’”

The Garden District bus route, Reina-Flores told the Reveille, had been his main reason for coming to the university. His grandmother is too elderly to drive, but her home is just minutes from a stop on the line. 

“It made everything more possible for me.”

Just a few weeks after starting at the university, Reina-Flores said, he learned that the Garden District bus route would be terminated. And on Aug. 11, commencement day for the summer session, it was. 

“If I knew this before, one of two things would’ve happened,” Reina-Flores told the Reveille in August. “I wouldn’t have come to LSU, or I would’ve looked for a different place and restructured my life.”

When he reached out to Parking and Transportation in August, Reina-Flores said, they suggested he look into the Baton Rouge CATS bus system to get to school. But the CATS stop closest to his grandmothers’ was a 25-minute walk, which Reina-Flores couldn’t safely make.

Riders left scrambling by the route’s August termination said that Parking and Transportation hadn’t given the community sufficient warning. Only a series of small fliers on the bus and a notification from the TransLoc app had augured the line’s end, and even those arrived with little advance. 

“It was less than a month’s notice,” said Spenser Biernacki, a 29-year-old biology Ph.D. student who lives in the Garden District. “And they did it in the middle of the summer, so if people are coming back to school from being gone for the summer, they’re going to have no idea that they’re not going to have this resource to get to campus anymore.”

Shortly after the Reveille first reported on the Garden District bus route’s August termination, Parking and Transportation announced they would extend the line’s life. In an email, they acknowledged inconspicuous and short notice had given students little time to make other plans. 

“Parking and Transportation Services understands that our communications about the cancellation of the Garden District Route may have not made it to you,” the email read. “Additionally, we understand there is a need for more time to plan for this disruption in each of your lives.”

The bus was only gone for 10 days when it resumed service for the fall semester on Aug. 21. 

“And then, this semester, I thought everything had cooled down and they were going to continue,” Reina-Flores said. 

But in early November, he learned that Parking and Transportation planned to shut down the Garden District bus route once again, this time at the end of the fall semester on Dec. 8. 

Reina-Flores reacted.

“When I got the news I just wanted to be transparent. I wanted everybody to hear, everybody to join, and I was collecting the emails of the people that I see take the bus daily. . .I wanted everybody who takes the bus daily to send their story.”

Garden District riders responded to the email chain Reina-Flores began, explaining how they had built lives around the bus.

Ben Bell, a student success coach with LSU Online and Continuing Education wrote that his family could afford only one car, which his wife used to get to work. 

“A major reason we chose to live near the Garden District route is to provide needed transportation to my work at LSU,” his email read. 

Jessica Stroope, a research associate with the LSU School of Nutrition and Food Sciences, wrote that she takes the bus when weather makes riding her bike unsafe. 

“If LSU is serious about reducing traffic and implementing their parking plan,” she wrote, “eliminating the Garden District route, which supports many students, staff, and faculty who bike *most* of the time, as well as students, faculty, and staff who rely on the route *all* of the time, is a poor decision.”

The route could be improved, she added, but changes should happen with input from the current riders and the LSU community. 

In the three months since the route was first terminated then reopened, very little had changed for those who depended on the bus to get to school and work. Riders still advocated fiercely for its preservation. On the other hand, much had changed within the department of Parking and Transportation. 

In October the department’s director, Brian Favela, resigned from his position. He is now the Director of Parking and Transportation Services at the University of South Carolina. 

Since then, the former Parking and Transportation Operations Manager, Kaylee Aulds, has stepped into the role of interim-director, she told the Reveille in December. 

Aulds also told the Reveille that, over the previous semester, the whole department had been shifted within the university’s organization. Where Parking and Transportation Services had formerly fallen under the umbrella of Facility Services, it would now be run under the direction of Campus Safety, Emergency Preparedness & Emergency Response.

A special committee is currently looking for a candidate to act as permanent director while Aulds remains in the temporary role. 

Today, the future of the Garden District bus route is uncertain at best.

Shortly after Reina-Flores mobilized to preserve the line in November, Aulds emailed him. The line’s life would be extended once again. A few days later, Parking and Transportation sent out a mass email.  

“This decision was made after careful consideration of the feedback and suggestions provided by students and staff,” the email read. “We understand how important it is to have reliable modes of transportation on campus, and we are committed to ensuring that the Garden District Route continues to serve as a convenient and accessible option for members of the LSU community.”

When the Reveille spoke with Interim-Director Aulds in December, she emphasized that the fate of the garden district bus route was still up in the air. 

“. . .They could or could not decide to continue it. But I think for those students who have already purchased apartments, or signed a year lease or whatever the case may be, that at least gives them the year.”

According to Aulds, Parking and Transportation’s rationale for cutting the line had remained the same. The Garden District bus route is still considered to be a “low-rider system.”

Despite the department’s second reversal, Aulds said that Parking and Transportation hadn’t received that much resistance from the community. 

“I think it was a small group of people who pushed back on it,” she told the Reveille. “But that’s not to say that those aren’t also valued opinions either.”

Parking and Transportation and the university administration will evaluate their plans for the line over the course of the spring semester. 

Spring 2024 will also be Reina-Flores’ last stint at LSU in Baton Rouge. Next school year, he plans to continue his education at LSU Health New Orleans, where he’s been accepted into the cardiopulmonary science program. 

Of course, he was glad that his and the community’s advocacy had prolonged the Garden District bus route, but as he considered the future, his thoughts turned to those who would still need the route after he’s gone.  

“I’ll need it at least one more semester, but there are people on campus, I assure you, that work and live here that depend on the bus route, not only for one semester,” Reina-Flores said. “They need it for their life. So this is something positive we’re all doing together. We’re fighting to preserve this bus line.”