The Central Ohio Transit Authority is investigating the possibility of a adding bus route from Hilliard to Ohio State.

Over the last year, OSU students and employees have requested that COTA offer more direct service from suburbs to campus.

The transit authority has enlisted planners to research how the company could create more effective ways to reach campus.

“It seems to be important to COTA riders and therefore important to us. It’s understandable, OSU is the second largest job center in Columbus, after downtown,” said Robert Stutz, vice president of communications and marketing for COTA.

Marketing representatives created surveys targeted at OSU employees. The survey asked a variety of questions, including how people traveled to work and when they ended their work days.

Once the surveys were made available online, COTA received 900 responses.

“This was a very pleasant turnout. The amount of interest in this route is impressive,” Stutz said.

COTA is in the process of analyzing the results of the surveys.

“The preliminary review of the data shows a large amount of interest and anticipated ridership for the route,” Stutz said. ” … We have been running tests to see how long travel from the Park and Ride locations to campus would be. The results look very promising; they’ve been pretty quick, about 20 minutes.”

The possibility of a route has some students excited.

“With the cost of gas always rising it would be great to have an alternative way to get to campus that would cut back on my expenses,” said Whitney Miller, a senior in journalism.

The Hilliard Park and Ride stops are at the intersection of Cemetery Road and Parkway Lane and at Trabue Road and Old Hilliard-Rome Road. Riders can park at the locations for free.

“I live in Hilliard, and I hate getting up so early to drive to campus and I absolutely hate dealing with parking; it’s so hard to get a spot,” said Charde Deans, a senior in psychology and human development and family science.

“If I could park and ride one bus straight to campus, I would definitely take the bus.” More details from the survey and the tests will be available in coming weeks. COTA will make a final decision on the route in April.

Tanesha Washington can be reached at [email protected].