UNM should cut shuttle service to reduce costs, carbon footprint

Editor,

The Physical Plant Department should be applauded for cutting costs and decreasing pollution. However, it is puzzling that UNM has only recently followed a policy of reducing temperatures in unoccupied buildings. Imagine if this had been the policy for the last decade. Instead of saving $75,000 this year, perhaps we could have saved more than half a million dollars over 10 years at very little inconvenience to UNM students or employees.

But of course, avoiding financial waste was not as dire 10 years ago as it is now, and decreasing our carbon footprint was not yet en vogue. However, now that our economy is hemorrhaging jobs, our university can scarcely afford to employ part-time faculty. And now that global warming has been embraced as a moral issue, conservation has come to the forefront of our collective conscience.

Lowering the temperature in unoccupied buildings was the easy part. Let me suggest a further, more (politically) difficult action: eliminating or drastically downsizing the UNM shuttle service. Every day, these metal behemoths continuously run their engines, belching chemicals into our air and burning precious financial resources in their tanks.

How much money does it cost to constantly run multiple multi-ton vehicles that get less than five miles to the gallon? And what is the benefit of even having these vehicles on campus in the first place? I realize that many UNM students perceive the distance from South Lot to campus to be vast, but consider this: It takes about as long to walk the 0.8 miles from South Lot to campus as it often does to wait for the shuttle and get bused.

People often resist change. The concept of having to walk from a parking lot to school may seem inconceivable to some. It may seem like a cruel inconvenience. But, before you object to the thought of incorporating an extra bit of exercise into your daily routine at virtually no sacrifice of time, saving the University hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, and decreasing air pollution, consider your great grandparents. Consider the 18- to 25-year-olds who lived during the last economic crisis as dire as the current one. Consider how they would view walking an extra 20 minutes a day, and consider if they would even view this as a sacrifice.

Josh Tybur

UNM student