When most students were relaxing on the beach or visiting with old friends at home during spring break, the University bus service, Tiger Trails, was still running and will do the same this summer.
Gary Graham, director of the Office of Parking, Traffic and Transportation, said he thinks it’s important to keep the buses running, even during holidays, because some students are still on campus.
Graham said the bus service uses two schedules throughout the year — regular and reduced. He said the reduced schedule has fewer buses running for the same number of hours as a normal day.
Graham said the Office of Parking keeps the bus service running on a reduced schedule during spring break, intersessions and the summer and has done so for years.
“There are students who don’t go on spring break,” he said.
Graham said the office ran seven buses during spring break.
Graham said it costs $87.52 to run a bus for an hour. Therefore, it costs the Office of Parking about $33,695.20 to run each bus for 11 hours a day for five days.
He said the bus service is funded entirely through student fees, $66 per student each semester.
Graham said the Tigerland routes, which usually use a total of five buses, only use two when operating on a reduced schedule.
He said the Highland/Burbank and Garden District/Perkins routes usually use three buses each and used one each during spring break.
Graham said the Downtown and Purple routes use two buses each on a normal basis but only used one each during the break.
He said the number of buses on the Highland/Ben Hur route remained the same at one, and the Gold route used no buses at all.
He said the bus service will return to a reduced schedule May 16 and will begin running on a regular schedule again when the fall semester begins.
Graham said several student workers rely on bus service to get to their jobs every day, even during spring break.
“We have about 60 students who work here with us,” he said. “And I know there were 10 or 12 still here working over the break.”
Graham said the bus service usually sees about 10,000 riders every day and saw about 500 per day during spring break last year.
Tiger Trails bus driver Michelle Franklin drove one of the Tigerland routes during spring break.
Franklin said she picked up about 125 to 150 people on her shift each day.
“That’s a lot for school being out,” she said.
Taylor Eckstein, mass communication senior, said she didn’t stay on campus during spring break but if she had, she wouldn’t have ridden the bus.
But Eckstein said she thinks it’s important to keep the bus running if students need it.
She said it was a good idea for the Office of Parking to run the service on a reduced schedule.
“It’s good that they figured out a plan so they didn’t completely waste money,” Eckstein said.
Yoshiko Miller, interior design freshman, said she rides the Highland/Burbank bus every day to and from campus.
Miller said she left Baton Rouge during spring break but would have used the bus system to travel around the city if she’d stayed.
Miller said she thinks it’s important for Tiger Trails buses to run regardless of whether school is in session because students are still in Baton Rouge and on campus.
“It’s definitely a good thing,” she said.
 
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Contact Rachel Warren at [email protected]