SLO Transit gets it: There is little glamor in taking the bus. Fighting for a place to sit while enduring the shifty gazes of strangers in a slow-moving box on wheels certainly does not seem ideal for the fashionable millennials of Cal Poly.
For many, there are not any better options for transportation around town or to campus. Cars are expensive to maintain and nearly impossible to park on a weekday. Bikes can require a commitment of sweat and calorie-burning that not everyone is willing to make. Walking sometimes isn’t feasible. Horses require hitching posts that simply don’t exist anywhere near the campus core.
SLO Transit buses, on the other hand, are free, relatively convenient and require only a commitment of taking an ID card out of a pocket.
So yes, buses are a good way to get around for some people. What might be lesser known is that buses are vital to the future prosperity of the San Luis Obispo community.
As new businesses take root in town and the student population grows, alternative forms of transportation become increasingly important. Buses help alleviate traffic and have a much smaller environmental impact when compared to personal cars.
More importantly for students, San Luis Obispo buses are continually becoming more efficient and easier to use. The SLO Transit app allows users to track the buses in real time and view the most up-to-date schedules and routes.
John Osumi is the CEO of Bishop Peak Technologies, the SLO-based company that developed the app. He said that his company has noticed some trends related to automobile traffic and buses.
“We’ve noticed that congestion has been increasing quite steadily over the last three years in SLO,” Osumi said. “The roads in SLO can only handle so much traffic, and if we can alleviate some of that just by using mass transit, it not only makes the buses travel faster and stay more on time, but it also helps the commuters (in cars).”
Buses travel faster if they have more passengers to transport because it means there are fewer cars on the road, but there is another potential contributing factor. If the demand for buses increases enough, Cal Poly and SLO Transit may have no choice but to provide more buses, further improving the SLO public transportation experience.
There are some steps students can take to ensure SLO transit runs as smoothly as possible. Dee Lawson, a city of San Luis Obispo Transportation Assistant, said that small changes in how students use the buses can pay off for everyone.
“Get to the stop before the time point says to, and have your ID out and ready to swipe before getting on the bus,” said Lawson. “The buses will stay on time so much better.”
Over the course of an entire day, tiny delays from riders arriving late or fumbling with their credentials can add up and become a significant hindrance to the bus system.
Luckily, the SLO Transit app exists to make those tiny delays a thing of the past. There are no longer any excuses for not being ready at the bus stop on time.
Bussing around town no longer involves the fussing it once did. If walking, biking and horseback riding are not ideal, try leaving the car — and the glamorous aspirations — at home and do the quaint college town of San Luis Obispo a favor: Take the bus.