BUS ROUTES RETURN

Student complaints lead to change

BY COLIN FALCON @nestingnests

Parking and Transportation Services has reintroduced modified Tigerland A and B bus routes after many students were left to improvise ways to campus when the routes were discontinued earlier this summer.

LSU’s campus is home to several construction projects this summer, all of which affect foot and vehicle traffic differently. In a brief informational email detailing the projects sent in mid-May, Parking and Transportation said “Several Tiger Trails routes will be affected by construction. Make sure to stay up to date on routes through the Transloc app or Transloc website.”

The email didn’t mention the possible removal of entire routes, and when the summer semester started, both Tigerland routes were axed to the surprise of many students living in the area.

“One day I came to the bus stop, but I waited for like 20 minutes. I thought there was a problem with my network or my phone,” said Mohsena Lopa, a 30-year-old engineering science doctoral stu- dent living in Tigerland, about the day she learned the routes were no longer in service. “If you are starting service or stopping service, there should be some head’s up.”

Lopa came to LSU from Bangladesh in spring 2023. Like many other international students living in Tigerland, Lopa said she doesn’t have a car due to practicality and cost issues. Without many other options and classes that still needed attending, she began walking to campus in the summer heat.

Lopa walks to her office in the Alex Box stadium almost every weekday. She said one trip takes 50 minutes at minimum. She usually stays at her office for eight to ten hours at a time, so she walks with three bags containing her laptop, food and other essentials. Additionally, the intense summer heat, which usually sits comfortably in the ‘90s, and occasional storms often make the trek far more difficult, according to her.

“There’s no shade on the walk, so you can’t even wait anywhere when it’s raining,” Lopa said. “It’s too hard.”

The intense sun left some students unable to get to campus with accommodations.

“If I don’t use an umbrella or anything else, I find it difficult to get to the campus,” said 25-yearold Fuad Hasan, another Tigerland resident.

Hasan is also a Bangladeshi engineering student studying for his Ph.D. This summer was his first semester at LSU after living in the United States for only a couple months.

“It was difficult for me because I’m a newcomer, so the campus directions and buildings were not familiar to me,” Hasan said. “I thought that it would be easy for me to use the Tigerland bus to help find out where buildings are and get to campus. But suddenly I noticed the buses stopped.”

Hasan said the route changes are especially disappointing because he and many other international students made the decision on where to live based on the availability of transportation. He said international students often manage the daunting task of moving to a different country by corresponding with the students that did it before them about where to stay and what works best. Because of that, Hasan said almost all Bangladeshi students end up staying in the Tigerland area and depending on the busses.

The loss of such an important community resource and lack of any information about the situation caused one student to go to the horse’s mouth for answers. Thirtyyear-old Tanvir Sarkar completed his masters in civil engineering at LSU and is currently pursuing his Ph.D. Like many others, Sarkar was confused at the lack of buses when summer semester began.

Sarkar is also a graduate student senator for student government. Due to that position, he said many Tigerland students approached him about the route changes and asked if he could help. He investigated how far the problem stretched, and according to him, got in touch with at least 70 students without a way to campus. Sarkar took the information to Parking and Transportation Services, sending an email requesting the routes to be reinstated to director Brian Favela.

“The limited ridership in the Tigerland area was the deciding factor in the elimination of the stops within Tigerland,” Favela said in an email responding to Sarkar. “The 70-100 international students you indicate as regular users of Transit Trails is not reflected in our transit ridership. I am going to ask my team to investigate this as soon as possible.”

A week after Parking and Transportation’s initial response, they contacted Sarkar with a solution. Starting on August 14, a slightly modified version of the Tigerland route will be introduced. According to Favela, the new route will “connect Tigerland residents with the campus through the Nicholson Gateway Community and into the core of campus on North Stadium Drive.”

Sarkar said he is glad the route will return but thinks making the student of Tigerland go another month without a reliable route to campus is unacceptable.

“We understand the proposed reinstatement of the Tigerland route on August 14 is aimed at addressing these concerns. However, this leaves a substantial gap of more than a month before the students can resume using the bus service conveniently,” said Sarkar.