New transportation schedule
Buses 90 and 91 are given new routes in order to appease traffic concerns
This semester, Liberty University Transit has made a few changes to two of the bus routes. Route 90, which is the Cornerstone bus route, and Route 91, which is the apartments bus route, have both been changed.
TRANSIT — Additional stops have been added along several campus routes in order to aid traffic flow. Photo credit: Lauren Smith
Greg Mimbs, a senior at Liberty who lives at Cornerstone, explained the differences.
“Basically they are doing a reverse route,” Mimbs said. “They are making three stops instead of two stops. They used to stop at Green Hall and DeMoss. Now they are stopping at different stops. It starts at the Keyhole, and then it goes to the Liberty Bell, and after that, it goes to Green Hall and then back to Cornerstone.”
Ted Sweet, transportation and transit manager of Greater Lynchburg Transit Company (GLTC), confirmed the different bus patterns. Sweet explained that now, the two bus routes enter the new tunnel from Wards Road and come the back way on Regents Boulevard.
“The reason we did (the route change) is because DeMoss is where most of the students are getting off for classes,” Sweet said. “We are getting them to the Liberty Bell five minutes earlier than last year, and at the same time, it is helping out all the traffic that all the students were complaining about at the Liberty Bell going to Green Hall.”
Sweet said that since the traffic coming into campus (southbound) would always get backed up, all buses, except 71, only travel northbound.
“It was more of a decision that transit made for a whole campus environment rather than focusing on one (spot),” Sweet said.
Mimbs explained his opinion that the route could either be shorter or longer depending on the traffic that buses experience on Wards Road and the construction they have to drive through when they enter campus through the new tunnel.
“It can sometimes take 15 minutes or sometimes 25 minutes to get to campus,” Mimbs said. “I usually left earlier, but now this is definitely a solid point where I have to leave earlier to always get to where I need to go to.”
Sweet refuted the claim that it will take students longer to get to class, claiming that the bus schedule this semester has buses leaving five minutes earlier than they did last semester.
Mimbs explained that a down side to these new routes is that students will get on the 90 and 91 bus routes at DeMoss and take that bus to Green Hall instead of taking a 71 bus.
“I feel as if that is a major problem,” Mimbs said. “When we get to Green Hall from DeMoss right before we head back to Cornerstone, half of the bus is getting off because those people just wanted to get to Green Hall. So usually if the bus is full, we have to wait for another bus, which comes every 15 minutes. (In one of my experiences) the bus was basically full — as full as can be after we left
DeMoss — but when we left Green Hall to go back to Cornerstone, the bus was only about 25 percent full.”
Robert Smith, assistant transit manager for GLTC, explained that one of the reasons the 90 and 91 are stopping at the Liberty Bell is to help ease congestion resulting from Convocation release and class changes. Smith suggested that commuter students could take any bus to Green Hall and then take the 90 or 91 route from there.
“We are very proactive on keeping the buses on time,” Smith said. “We believe we are here to serve the students.”
Students can get the bus schedule on the Liberty Transit website. Sweet also said that every bus sign has a QR code that students can scan to track the buses.
Foley is a news reporter.