"LIFE ETC."

Abiding at the Stop

Imagine that you've bought the photocopies for a course you're taking and there are more than 700 pages. With the other things they add up to nearly 1000 pages. With this mass in your hand, after 8 hours of lectures, you reach the Tunus bus stop in front of B-Building at 5:35 p.m. The queue is so long that its end goes beyond the other bus stop. There are more or less 150 people. Everybody is waiting for the shuttle buses that are supposed to come at 5:40 p.m.

Well… A shuttle bus comes just on time. It takes I don't know- maybe 50 students (because it's forbidden to accept standing passengers). And it departs from the bus stop. In a short while, more students are added to the line and the number of students in the line exceeds 150 again (yes, I've counted them. I had nothing better to do while standing there). How long would you expect them to wait for another shuttle bus to come? More than 150 people have waited until 6 p.m. Only one bus came at 6 p.m. and took another 50-60 students.

The remaining 90-100 students (including me) stood there until another bus came. It was 6:08. More than half an hour since we had come to the stop. Of course, this bus couldn't take all the waiting students. I don't even know how long the others had to wait.

This wasn't the worst case I had witnessed. Last May, I came to the same bus stop around 5:30 p.m. A group of us, 10 or 15 people, waited until 6:10 p.m. The bus didn't come. It started to rain heavily. We were stuck. Then I decided to call the transportation unit and they managed to send a bus.

My watch showed 6:20 p.m. when the bus arrived. It was 40 minutes late. Unfortunately, such problems don't surprise anyone, anymore. You can find many students on campus with similar experiences.

As a person who is proud to be a part of Bilkent community, I'm ashamed to say that I think our transportation system is really weak in comparison with the overall quality of our university. We have no public bus routes between the campus and the city. We have no public minibuses coming to the campus after 8 p.m. Even during the day, it's a complete loss of time to use minibuses. Since the day Atatürk Hospital was opened, it takes 10-15 minutes more to come to the campus or go to the city by minibus because they make some kind of a "neighborhood tour."

In short, we have no vehicles to rely on but shuttle buses. So, it should be our right to expect the shuttle bus system to be more reliable. In my opinion, if a student, employee, assistant, or a professor comes to the bus stop on time, he/she should be sure that the shuttle bus would take him/her to the city or to the campus. We shouldn't need to call and warn the transportation unit if there's a schedule for shuttle buses. I have to thank everyone who contributed to the acquisition of new buses. It freed us from stinking seats and water dripping from airconditioners. Moreover, bus drivers are mostly helpful and friendly.

I think implementing shuttle bus practices that reflect the times printed in the bus schedules will create a transportation system that suits Bilkent University.