“Do you support a $50 per semester fee, an increase of $12, to account for inflation and upgraded service including greater campus access to the downtowns of Champaign and Urbana and expanded late night bus service on campus routes provided by the Transportation Fee which funds the campus transit system and Safe Rides?”

That’s one of the questions you’ll see tomorrow on the ballot while you’re voting for student trustee and student senators, along with other referendums. This specific referendum proposes an increased fee for increased bus service. Whether you actually care – if you’re the one who’ll be paying those $12 dollars or not – we encourage you to vote “Yes” on this specific referendum.

The University has had a contract with the MTD since 1989, and the two parties renew their contract every three years. This was one of those years.

Whether you vote “yes” or “no” for increased service, the fee will increase $9 automatically because of costs that rise with inflation, and we won’t receive any more services. If a majority of students vote “no,” you will still end up with a $9 fee increase. But for just $3 more, we will be getting new services that will be beneficial for a majority of the student body.

The proposed new bus routes would be easy for riders to understand.

There would be four different routes, and each would extend to reach opposite ends of campus. This would cut your bus-riding time down by allowing the bus to go directly back and forth to stops as opposed to circling around the campus after reaching its last stop, as it does now.

There would also be Stopwatches at each of the bus stops, allowing students to better understand the bus routes and how to get from place to place.

It would be a huge improvement from the current system and the long-standing belief that the MTD is great, but only if you know how to use it. We’ve been told by the MTD that if this referendum passes, there will be people at each stop during the first few weeks the bus routes are implemented to help people adapt to the new routes.

Along with new routes, we would be receiving service later in the night. SafeRides doesn’t reach everywhere students live. With this new bus service, students will be able to safely get home late at night, even on weekends.

If you do the math, assuming you vote “yes” for the new bus services and fees, you would end up paying $50 a year for transportation on campus, which is 75 cents a week for as many rides on the bus that you need. We can’t think of anywhere else that has that type of service.

So take advantage of the service that you get as a student and be willing to pay $3 more for extra services that would benefit everybody. It will be worth it.