Editor,
As the price of gas rises steadily to $5 per gallon, Parking Services has done city bus commuters a disservice by eliminating traditional pick-up and drop-off points at the newly constructed roundabout, located near the hospital at Yale and Lomas boulevards. "I used to pick up 50 people a day," a shuttle driver told me recently.
The old shuttle stops used to give students an easy way to get from the Duck Pond or the parking lots to University Hospital. It also gave UNMH patients, who may be sick or injured, a safe way to return to Main Campus or to their car. Having a shuttle stop at the roundabout makes for easy connections with the city bus lines because there are several main routes that run up and down Lomas Boulevard which all stop at, or near, Yale Boulevard.
The way things are now, if we want to transfer from a city bus to a UNM shuttle, we must first climb up to the nearest bus stops, located at the Duck Pond or on a hill overlooking the hospital. Granted, the hills Parking Services is asking us to summit are not Himilayan peaks, but they are certainly dreary, uninspired and totally unnecessary wastes of time and energy. Parking Services should reinstall the shuttle stops at the roundabout so that Yale Boulevard and Central Avenue can once more become vibrant transportation hubs for both city and UNM buses, like they used to be.
Chuck Reuben
UNM staff
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