Photos by
Lane Hickenbottom/DN
(from top to bottom)
TO BOARD any of Lincoln’s StarTran buses, just
go to a bus stop and wait. This stop is at 14th and
N streets.
UNL STUDENTS can pick up free bus schedules
and passes at the Nebraska Union’s information
desk.
BRUCE ROBBINS takes the helm of the 0 Street
Shuttle. The shuttle’s route serves Southeast
Community College, Gateway Mall and downtown
Lincoln.
I Get on the Bus
Students learn to adapt to life without cars
By Jeff Randall
Senior Editor
For those students who are unfortunate
enough to find themselves stranded in
Lincoln without a vehicle to call their own,
all hope is not lost.
Unlike many other cities where a car is an
essential part of life, Lincoln is small enough
and concentrated to the point that most points
of interest are within walking and/or biking
distance. But there are the occasional sites
that are just a bit too far to reach without
motorized transport.
free service for UNL students, faculty and
staff played a major part in their decision to
ride the city’s buses.
Larry Worth, transit manager for
StarTran, said the three-year-old program has
been a success for both StarTran and UNL.
Under the plan, UNL pays StarTran quarterly
to provide the free service - which includes
intercampus shuttles as well as regular bus
service.
“We have no way of knowing exactly how
many students use the buses now compared to
three years ago, but we and the university
both feel that several students are taking
advantage of this offer,” Worth said.
The students’ only complaints were about
StarTran’s lack of service to some of
Lincoln’s more distant locations.
inai s wnere atari ran comes in.
As Lincoln’s only regular source of public
transportation, StarTran has long been many
students’ only option for cross-town travel.
Aaron Harper, a senior business major at
UNL, said he had learned to appreciate
Lincoln’s bus system since arriving here
three years ago. Originally from Omaha,
Harper said he had used buses there only on
rare occasions.
“I think my car broke down when I was a
junior in high school, and I had to use the
buses to get back and forth to work,” he said.
“But now, I’ve pretty much grown accus
tomed to relying on them every day.”
Sylvia Daniels, an undeclared sopho
more, said Lincoln’s buses were a welcome
change from the public transportation she
became familiar with while living on the East
Coast.
“It’s nice to ride a bus without worrying
about some drunk guy falling asleep on your
lap,” Daniels said. “But I suppose that has a
lot to do with this being a smaller town than
Boston or New York.”
Besides convenience and the lack of park
ing worries, many students said StarTran’s
I think you can get to places like Holmes
Lake and Pioneers Park if you try hard
enough, but it would take a lot of transfers,
and I don’t know if it’s even worth the hassle
sometimes,” Harper said.
But being a public entity, much like the
city’s fire or police departments, means that
StarTran faces a limited budget and could not
provide as many expanded routes as one
might expect, Worth said.
“We’d like to push our boundaries further
so we could provide service to more areas,”
he said, “but the reality is that we have to
keep our established services running and
that doesn’t leave a lot of extra money for
anything new.”
Most students said StarTran was doing as
well as could be expected; and, Daniels said,
students’ expectations shouldn’t be exces
sively high when they consider how much
they pay for the services they receive.
“For us, it’s a free ride,” she said. “So I
have a hard time complaining about any
thing.”
