Cash-strapped students in need of transportation to area airports for holiday breaks might find relief in Student Government’s efforts to start a free holiday shuttle service by the Thanksgiving holiday.
Noah Miller, SG transportation director, said SG is currently working on sending a shuttle to the Baton Rouge Metropolitan Airport from the University every 30 or 60 minutes for holiday breaks.A shuttle to the Louis Armstrong International Airport in New Orleans is also a possibility for the service. The shuttle would most likely leave in the early morning and afternoon if started, Miller said.The exact days of service before each holiday have not been decided.”Nothing is set in stone yet,” Miller said.Demand would dictate how many days the shuttle is offered for the Christmas holiday, but Miller said the shuttle service may be limited to one day before the holiday starts because of costs.SG would cover the service’s costs, though a budget has yet to be determined. “When you get into doing multiple days, the money starts to rack up quickly,” Miller said. “If we can afford multiple days, it would be a possibility … We would not like to charge students anything because they are already paying the fees for the buses.”Tiger Trails’ buses would provide the shuttle service, though Gary Graham, Office of Parking, Traffic and Transportation director, said the service would not take away from the bus system. “We have extra buses available,” Graham said. “Now, if they want five or six buses, then it would be one or two buses not running [for Tiger Trails].” A broadcast e-mail will be sent to students within the next two weeks to gather more information on their demand for the service, Miller said. Stuart Watkins, SG president, said holiday shuttle services were “one of the hot button topics” when transportation was discussed during SG campaigning.”With thousands of campus residents, we were wondering if [a shuttle service] was a possibility,” Watkins said. “In the past, they’ve had to take taxis or things like that, but now that we moved to a privatized transportation system, we’ve heard of things very similar to this at other major universities. We’re hoping to work this in as well.”——Contact Brianna Paciorka at [email protected]