It’s an overcast morning and Wolf Village’s main bus stop is hardly crowded. However, when 8:45 a.m. rolls around and two buses pull up, upward of 40 students rush to catch a ride to their 9:10 a.m. classes. Some are lucky enough to get a seat, while others are left to hike to class or go back to bed.
“It has gotten to the point where people are missing class because they’ve missed the bus,” Kishore Boone, a senior in sociology and Wolf Village resident, said.
Boone said the Wolflink Shuttle seems to be the most crowded of the buses that make stops near Wolf Village.
Although waiting for the next bus may seem like a reasonable option, Tanisha Copeland, a senior in psychology and Wolf Village resident, said it is not always feasible.
“Sometimes there are long gaps in between buses getting in,” she said. “Then you’re in trouble.”
According to Copeland, Transportation distributed surveys to Wolf Village residents concerning the Wolfline Service, but she has not heard of anything resulting from the responses.
Christine Klein, information and communication specialist for Transportation, said Wolf Village residents have not directed their concerns to the Transportation office.
“It hasn’t been getting back to us directly in the past few weeks,” she said.
Klein attributed the increase in Wolfline ridership to a drop in temperature.
She advised Wolf Village residents to leave their apartments earlier than they normally do in the mornings.
“If you are seeing that buses are very full, if you can, leave 10 minutes earlier and take an earlier bus,” she said.
Adena Messinger, Transportation planner, suggested students who cannot ride the Wolflink Shuttle from Wolf Village walk to the West Lot and ride a Varsity route bus.
Wolf Village residents are not the only ones with concerns about the Wolfline service.
Alla Alexandrova, a junior in accounting, who said she most frequently rides the Avent Ferry and Fraternity Court buses, described them as “overcrowded.”
While Alexandrova said she gets off at the D.H. Hill Library stop, she noted people boarding the bus after that point rarely acquire seats for the bus ride.
“People getting on beyond the library will have to stand,” she said.
Brandon Smith, a sophomore in computer science, said he often experiences cramped bus rides when leaving Centennial Campus.
“Buses overfill and people have to stand,” he said.
Smith said at the conclusion of his engineering courses on Centennial Campus, the majority of his classmates head for the bus stop. On one occasion, Smith said he could not get on a bus because of the large number of riders.
According to Messinger, Transportation considers class schedules, the duration of bus circuits and the amount of buses operating on each route, among other factors when planning the bus schedule.
While providing more buses on each route may seem to be a solution to the problem of overcrowding, Klein said a lack in funds stands in the way.
“We don’t have funds to provide more buses,” she said. “We have a 23-bus fleet and that’s what we have to work with.”
According to Klein, funding for the Wolfline bus system was composed of 80 percent from student transit fees and 20 percent from the sale of University parking permits.
Klein said a court ruling a year and a half ago allocated a percentage of revenue from parking fines to the Wake County School System.
Transportation’s calculations showed the need for a $20 increase in student transit fees, Klein said, to maintain the current level of Wolfline service and provide some additional service.
However, she said the fee review committee allowed for half of this, increasing the student transit fee by $10.
“With the $10, we’ll be be struggling,” she said.
Klein said Transportation receives requests every day for additional service to parts of campus that do not have stops, but without funding, it will be difficult to provide it.
“What we have now is probably what we have to work with for the next two years,” she said.
News Editor Josh Harrell contributed to this story.
