Every weekend, dozens of students head to the Tigerland bars right off campus. Many will use a rideshare app to get there, others a designated driver.
But some students choose to walk the distance home after a night out, despite the closest on-campus dorm to Tigerland being about one and half miles away.
Following the death of Madison Brooks, an LSU student who police say was raped and fatally struck by a vehicle on Burbank Drive after a night at Tigerland in January, students have been advocating for safer and cheaper transportation.
Mass communication seniors Anna Faucheaux, Amara McKay and Brinon Kruithof have been pushing for different rideshare systems for students to go to and from Tigerland. LSU has shut them down repeatedly.
In her four years at LSU, Faucheaux said a lot of people have died walking home and very little has been done about it. The struggle for change has been an unsuccessful class effort that Faucheux said would just need to be passed to the group behind her.
“We’re kind of at a standstill, we’ve exhausted all things,” Faucheaux said.
The group has pitched ideas for the university to partner with Uber or Lyft to get students home safely. In response, LSU said it would use a budget of $10,000 to partner with Lyft, Kruithof said. The solution is temporary and only allocates for around 1,000 rides.
“It doesn’t seem like there is any real change being made,” Kruithof said. “Everytime we have brought anything up to them, it seems very much like they are just making themselves look better. It doesn’t seem like LSU actually cares about making change.”
Kruithof said the university’s Tiger Trails bus system was extended, but at the bare minimum. He said navigating the bus can be difficult for students, especially at 2 a.m. in Tigerland.
They said the one positive they were met with was that LSUPD would be more accommodating with its Shield App.
The group noted how President William Tate IV’s campus-wide email following Brooks’ death focused on the underage drinking aspect instead of the safety issues that occurred.
“LSU finds any reason they can to not take blame for things or to put it on anything else rather than just saying sorry for what happened and actually trying to stop it from happening in the future,” Kruithof said.
Mass communications freshman Elina Vangelatos said she was out with friends in the fall when she was roofied at one of the bars in Tigerland.
“My rideshare was an ambulance,” Vangelatos said. “My friends had no clue what other option for transportation they could have used.”
With the spring semester coming to a close, the group’s efforts with the university will have to stay on hold and be passed along to the next class.
“They just need to do better,” Faucheaux said.
