MILLER TIME!

According to Mike Miller, Director of Facilities Planning and Management at Butte College, "Students are 1 out here." Yet, accounts of students getting left at bus stops have flooded the campus. Alongside those complaints were concerns regarding the "Shuttle System." Miller was quick to dismiss any misconceptions or myths by shedding light on the effect of over-enrollment on the Transportation Department specifically.

According to data collected from this semester so far, roughly 1,500 students are riding the Butte college buses this year, a 26 percent increase over the 1,100 students who rode last year. Miller attributes this to the skyrocketing fuel costs. The increase in the cost of fuel not only encourages more students to ride the buses, it also hurts the transportation budget, where fuel demands a majority of its funds.

The Transportation Department's budget is composed of money from the transportation fee that is required of all Butte college students and supplemented by district funds. The problem, said Miller, is that the state law has put a $60 cap as the most a student can pay for their transportation fee. So the school then depends on an increase of district funding in order to increase bus routes.

The transportation fee students pay accounts for roughly $900,000 of the annual budget annually with the district supplementing only $150,000. To put that in perspective, a new bus would cost Butte College around $180,000 with $120,000 in additional costs including fuel, tire wear-n-tear, drivers, and mechanics. "We need to expand the bus system," Miller said, acknowledging the current budget problems with the state.

District funds are allocated based on the district's prioritization of college needs. Thus the transportation department is currently competing with other faculty programs and interests. Despite this, Miller is determined to work proactively to accommodate the increasing numbers of students using the bus system. He and his staff are currently researching methods to increase efficiency with their limited resources. One way, he offers, is to analyze the current bus routes and see how adding or deleting stops would improve efficiency. One idea, for which he encourages student feedback, is the concept of an "Express Bus" route that would stop at fewer stops in Chico but would offer a 30 minute turnaround from Chico to the main campus and back.

In defense of his staff, Miller insists, "No student is left behind." He denies claims that there was a student left at a bus stop when another bus did not return to pick up the "overflow," once they had made their drops at main campus. Miller cites that the district vans have been following main bus routes in Oroville to assist buses that did not anticipate the high volumes. Currently in the works is a system of seven "clean-up buses," that will serve as backup to the main routes, if overflowing continues to be reported.

As for the claims of the shuttle system being difficult to find or use, Miller said that the shuttles were not originally part of the Transportation Department's plans for campus this semester. Rather, it was hurriedly put together the first day of school as a response to an immediate need. A group of volunteer drivers (mostly grounds staff) picked up and dropped off students at the main bus loading port using district vans, originally allocated for athletics and field trips. When asked how students would have known about the shuttles, Miller mentioned two signs posted on either side of campus announcing pickups at the main bus loading port on main campus. No schedule was designed because the shuttle system could not be fully adopted or organized without increases in the already tight Transportation budget.

With all other programs and departments competing against each other for the same funds, the Transportation Department is not always prioritized. Miller was vigilant in his stance that serving student's needs were top priorities, and that he and his staff would continue to do everything in their power to increase the effectiveness of the bus system in light of Butte's recent growth.