Buses from campus to campus should be free

By Eduardo Merille

It is time for buses traveling between our two campuses, MMC and BBC, to be free.

As it stands, faculty and staff have to pay $5.50 for one-way trips, and students pay $2.50.

Many Panthers, especially those who are hospitality or communications, frequently go to the Biscayne Bay campus for classes.

It is no secret that being a student entails a number of financial burdens; and sometimes that means that those extra $2.50 may be the difference between having lunch or not, of attending class or not.

The solution is to make intercampus transportation free;  and finance it through a marginal increase in students’ parking and transportation fee.

As Student Media has reported on page four, the increase in tuition fee would only be from about three to seven dollars.

Meaning it would be a very small price to pay when compared to the mobility and flexibility FIU students would gain by shifting the weight of the cost to all Panthers.

If the Golden Panther Express  shuttle were free, more people would use it, thereby lessening the amount of private student vehicles that move from one school to the other and making parking less intense.

Think about it, the bus that takes students from MMC to the Engineering Center for free. 

It is dauting to even think just how much more impossible it would be to find parking if extra cars had to be added to the equation.

Making the buses free would also help the somewhat desolate BBC campus blossom, as more students would be willing to take classes at BBC, not having to make the costly commute in a personal car or pay the cumulatively costly price of the current bus price.

$2.50 may not seem like much, but if you have to go to and from campuses every day of the week; it adds up.

Adding a few more dollars to the tuition, on the other hand, would only be a one time payment.

Besides, there are other, less important and more expensive commodities that currently go on our tuition charges, one of them being the gym fee.

Any analysis of this nature should begin by recognizing just how lucky we are to even have such a comprehensive bus service, reflective of a hardworking and prospeous school.

But any good thing can always be made better; and for those students who have to inconvencience themselves daily to do something as fundamentally important as attending class, something has to be done.

Let us pay a little bit more and struggle a little bit less. Make the buses between campuses free.

Photo by Florida International University at FIU Flickr

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