Starting today, Tiger Trails returns to the former Purple bus route, designating its recently revised counterpart as a separate route, Purple-Union.
The route was initially changed because of a resolution passed by Student Government in March urging LSU Disability Services to re-evaluate campus accessibility for disabled students, as previously reported by The Daily Reveille.
Part of the resolution urged Parking and Transportation Services to consider a new route or additional stops, leading to the alteration of the Purple route, said Jeff Campbell, senior director of Administrative Services, Risk Management and Parking. The additional bus stop allowed transportation services to accommodate the needs of disabled students by providing access to the Student Union.
Although the resolution was passed in March, Campbell said he thought it would be best to wait until the fall semester to introduce the change rather than implement it at the end of the spring semester.
While SG received positive feedback from students about the change, Parking and Transportation Services received negative feedback, causing the office to re-evaluate the route, Campbell said.
Students complained about the longer wait time caused by the buses’ delay at the stoplight at South Campus Drive and Highland Road and the lack of stops closer to the west side of campus, said political science sophomore Louis Gremillion, SG director of transportation.
“Students on that side of campus who regularly used those stops would have to rely only on the Gold bus to get around campus,” Gremillion said. “There was no longer a bus going in that direction.”
Biological engineering junior Makaila Santiago said the revised route has benefits and drawbacks.
“There was no bus route that stopped at the [Student] Union, so that’s the good thing about it, but the bad thing about it is that they cut off Dalrymple Drive, so now you have to walk,” Santiago said.
After meeting with SG senators, Parking and Transportation Services decided to bring back the original Purple route while keeping the new one as well, Campbell said.
“We’re going to try it and see how it works,” he said.
Of the 19 operating Tiger Trails buses, two run the Purple route, and one will run the Purple-Union route.
The new route will reflect on TransLoc — the campus transit application that can be found on the LSU Mobile app — beginning Monday. The Purple-Union route will appear on the app in a lighter shade of purple.
Campbell said he hopes students will be satisfied with this new accommodation.
“I think this is a fairly good compromise,” Campbell said. “If it doesn’t work, we’ll certainly re-evaluate it with Student Government. I would hope that it works, but you know we’re always willing to try and accommodate where we can.”
Civil engineering junior Alexis Rush said she thinks having two distinct purple routes may not work out.
“I think that’ll confuse everybody and make everybody more angry,” Rush said.