Transportation Advisory Committee

This is a forum for discussion of general transportation issues and concerns.

As an older grad student I either have the option of paying a huge fee for a parking pass of buying a bus pass when the bus schedule is neither convienient for grad student work hour nor does it pickup/dropoff near my apartment. I don’t have the benefits of new students for free bus passes, I don’t have the benefits of faculty with discounted parking and carpooling, and I don’t have the money to afford housing nearby. Grad students are really being screwed by the transportation office.

I believe that the least the University could do for grads is to offer us the reduced carpooling option.  I personally would have been able to carpool with 2–3 other grads, but due to no incentive, we did not coordinate our schedules to make that happen.  It seems to me that this would also meet the University’s objective of reducing the number of cars that come to campus.  Also, I tried to trade in my option to renew a parking permit in the fall of 2006 in order to get a free bus pass, because I was willing to try this even though it would be inconvenient.  I was told that because I had owned a parking permit in the past, I did not qualify for a free bus pass!  This seems contradictory to the transportation office’s objectives because I was actually penalized for trying to ride the bus instead of renewing my parking permit.

I live where the bus comes once an hour, because that is where I can afford to live, which is not convenient at all. Also, the bus hours are not convienient for grad students, who work odd hours. In addition, charging 650$ for a bus pass is outrageous, especially since I then need to walk half a mile to even get to work. My undergraduate institution has twice the enrollment of Cornell and grad parking passes there are HALF what they are here. Also, there is no payment plan for grad students. We have to pay in one lump sum, even though we make just enough to get by. Finally, the parking lot by my lab is being turned into a garden, for some reason. Parking where I work was limited to begin with. Now, when I come back at night and am at work on the weekends, I have to drive around to even find a spot so that I can go in to work extra hours!! Grad students needs are clearly not being met and something needs to be done about this.

Almost every transportation policy change since I enrolled here at Cornell has hurt existing graduate students. We’ve seen virtually nothing but price increases and loss of privileges/incentives for the past 5–6 years. The only area in which improvement was realized, that of bus transportation, is now seeing that improvement erased, and graduate students expected to (yet again) bear the extra cost.

Cornell should stop constructing buildings!!! Instead focus on constructing parking lots, that way there are more parking spaces to accommodate more cars which naturally happens when you construct more buildings.

I think when you construct buildings, it is mandatory to allot ample spaces for parking. I don’t see that being done here at Cornell. They must be violating some laws. Maybe someone should look into this angle to force Cornell to comply with any building code that it may be violating.

Now they have to increase the parking fees, that way people will be discouraged from parking in the university campus.

Who are affected most by this policy?

Graduate Students!!!

This is a discriminatory practice. Because the only people who can afford this are Cornell employees (who have full-time jobs) and some well-to-do undergrads. Grad students could barely live with their stipends.

This is a discriminatory policy against graduate students and should be stopped!

Cornell really does have a parking aristocracy. Priority is giving to V.I.P.’s faculty, etc. and now athletes are getting special priorities. Do I get special parking for giving lectures across campus each week? - NO! so, why should athletes get to park wherever they want when they have a game? On the subject of athletics, if the athletics department is going to hijack parking spaces every time there is a game, they should at leats have the decency to clean up the broken glass and trash. I have worked and studies at 4 universities in the US and abroad and Cornell has THE WORST transportation system for students. For faculty it’s great - free bus, disocuted parking, etc, but for grad students it sucks!

Cornell needs:

-A FREE Park and Ride Lot with frequent and late night TCAT service to and from campus for commuters who don’t live near a bus stop with reasonable service. I’ll pay for the bus pass if you build the P&R Lot.

-Parking permits that can be shared, so students living together can use each others cars for carpooling. I’ll split a parking permit with 4 people if we don’t have to use my car everday.

-To stop pretending like it saves money by charging students extra for the gym and a bus pass when tuition is 40k and they take 50% of every grant for overhead. That includes grad student fellowships and research assistantships. You can rip-off the NSF and NIH all you want, but try not to rip-off your grad students!