After receiving four bids Tuesday, the University is one step closer to bringing a new bus system to campus. Gary Graham, Office of Parking, Traffic and Transportation director, said University officials will be looking at the bids to check each one meets the University’s specifications.”We’ve looked at the bids, but not in detail,” Graham said. “I’m encouraged that the lowest bidder is going to be qualified.”Graham said the first two bids are affordable, and the third is “borderline affordable.” But the fourth bid appears to be higher than what the University is willing to pay.The lowest of the four bids is First Transit, which provides services for the universities of Alabama and Texas, Princeton University, Georgia Tech and North Carolina State University. First Transit offered a base fee of about $86 per hour, Graham said.Capital Area Transit System, the current bus provider for the University, charges the University $83.50 an hour.”But that doesn’t take into account that CATS cut hours, and we couldn’t raise the fees at the last minute,” Graham said.CATS didn’t submit a bid for the new bus system, and Graham said he doesn’t anticipate a lapse of service between the end of CATS’ service to the University and the start of the new company’s service.
Graham said he hopes the lowest bid will be chosen by next week.”There’s a lot of legal issues that need to be involved in this that requires the state as well to be involved. We hope to have the process started next week,” Graham said.Once the lowest bid is clarified, the University will start to calculate how much the student parking and transportation fee will be increased. Graham said the bids are probably within the range the students had approved.
“They approved up to $26, but I’m not sure we’ll need to go that route,” Graham said. “But until we actually do all of the calculations, I can’t be sure.”Anu Charles, pathobiological sciences graduate student, said the current bus system is not reliable and wouldn’t mind paying higher student fees for better service.”If they’re increasing it a little, then that’s fine,” Charles said.—-Contact Brianna Paciorka at [email protected]