dOne of the many awesome things about the University is its size. With this comes a huge campus, and you’re probably not going to want to walk everywhere.

If you’re an incoming transfer student, chances are that you will live off campus. If you’re an incoming freshman, there’s a chance you’ll be placed in Florida or Pennsylvania Avenue Residence halls, which can seem a distance from most classes and popular spots like Green Street.

While brisk walking is a great form of exercise, and also a good way to keep the “Freshman 15” at bay, we often find ourselves in a hurry. For times like this, biking and taking the bus are great options. If you’re living off-campus — and somewhere like the far-eastern depths of Urbana or near downtown Champaign, you might be adding a car to the mix.

Driving

Driving to campus is something that I would personally not recommend to any student who is simply heading to campus for class.

One of the frustrations is indeed trying to find a parking spot as many of the parking lots on campus are by permit, and many of the meters close to campus are taken or have time limits on them (and cost money). 

Now, driving on campus itself isn’t pretty. Because campus is such a pedestrian and bike-friendly community, some challenges can develop while trying to get from one place to another.

You should definitely take extra caution when driving on campus when classes are changing as there are many more pedestrians and bicyclists.

Bicycling

As mentioned earlier, campus, along with the city of Urbana, is an incredibly bike-friendly community. You will see bike racks outside of most buildings and residence halls on campus along with entirely separate bike lanes on many of the roads and sidewalks. Biking is also much faster than walking, a good exercise and typically the same amount of time as taking the bus.

The only main problem is, like driving, dealing with pedestrians. Although there are separate bike lanes, it is not uncommon to see people using these as sidewalks. It is not hard to distinguish the bike lanes from the sidewalks — they look like miniature roads with yellow dashes — so please, as a new student on campus, try to stay off of the bike lanes to make life easier for everyone.   

Keep in mind that when riding a bike at night, you must get lights for the front and back of your bike. Not only is it safer, but not having these lights can result in a warning or ticket. Although this should be a given, always ride your bike with traffic and always lock your bike on the actual bike racks. Locking your bike elsewhere can result in a warning as it is in violation of the Student Code.

Taking the bus

Lastly, there’s taking the bus. This is probably one of the best attributes to the University campus as there is typically a bus that can take you to and from almost anywhere — not only on campus, but in Champaign and Urbana.  

The other convenient part is how frequently these lines run. Obviously there are lines that run far less frequently, but the typical lines like the Illini, Teal, Yellow and Silver, run every 10-15 minutes. With these lines you also have I-stops on campus where you don’t even have to worry about flashing your i-card.

One of the only real inconveniences with the bus system is that during busy times, the buses can get extremely crowded — this isn’t good if you’re at all claustrophobic. 

I personally live by the Green bus, which offers a lot of ways to get around. If you find yourself living near Green stops, my main suggestion is to try and take Greenhoppers, Green Express, Green Campus or Green Sunnycrest. These buses have most of the same stops but don’t go as far away from campus as the regular Green line, so you are less likely to have a really crowded bus.

If you choose to take the bus a lot, I highly recommend downloading a Champaign-Urbana MTD app if you have a smartphone. You can find these on both Androids and iPhones and are completely free to download and use them. While the MTD website shows you what time a bus is supposed to arrive at the stop, the app tells you when they are actually going to arrive, like if they’re running late or early.

U of I has a big campus, and it can be easy to get around if you learn the best ways to do it.

Kat is a senior in LAS. She can be reached at [email protected].