Cedar Point’s Maverick roller coaster. OSU’s USG is sponsoring a trip to Cedar Point Sept. 14 as part of its Buckeye Road Trip program. Credit: Caitlin Essig / Managing editor for content
Ohio State’s Undergraduate Student Government announced it will be providing student bus trips to Cedar Point, the November OSU football game against Michigan in Ann Arbor, Mich., and major Ohio cities over Thanksgiving break during Fall Semester.
The trips are part of USG’s expanding Buckeye Road Trip program, which started last year with the idea of giving students without cars a ride home over breaks.
USG President Taylor Stepp said he is excited for the trips and expects them to be well-attended, considering spaces last year filled up within two or three days of registration opening.
“Last year, we promised to expand Buckeye Road Trip to take the program to new heights. With this schedule for Fall Semester, I think we’ve done just that,” Stepp said.
The trip will be free for students, although the Cedar Point and Michigan trips do not include admission for the events.
Stepp said the three trips used roughly $7,000 of the $10,000 allocated this semester for the program.
Dylan MacDowell, USG’s deputy director of student affairs, organized the trips and said he tried to “do something more creative” with the program this year.
“Originally, it was just to take students home over Veteran’s Day weekend and Thanksgiving, but we’re trying to do things a little bit more unique,” he said. The Veteran’s Day weekend trips will not be provided this year because bus service was not available, MacDowell said.
MacDowell said he first proposed the idea of a trip to the Michigan game and later ended up developing Buckeye Road Trip’s entire fall schedule.
USG took a survey of Buckeye Road Trip attendees to get suggestions last year, which helped when choosing the destinations for this year’s trips, MacDowell said. He also said there was no criticism of the program last year.
USG’s trips for Spring Semester have yet to be determined, but MacDowell said there are “some cool, creative options that are going to be different from what we’ve done in the past.”
He said there is the possibility of USG planning trips to New York City, Pennsylvania and away games for men’s basketball. More trips could be added for this semester, too, he added.
USG will provide one OSU charter bus for the Cedar Point trip and two for the Michigan game. The service for Thanksgiving break will send two buses to Cleveland, one to Cincinnati and one to Toledo. Each bus has a capacity of either 47 or 56 people. Some have Wi-Fi and televisions, MacDowell said.
MacDowell hopes Buckeye Road Trip will continue to expand in years to come so it can host trips nearly every weekend.
“There’s so many possibilities. We could go almost anywhere, within reason,” he said. “Hopefully it will get bigger and bigger, and more students will take advantage.”
Kayla McDaniel, a first-year in Spanish, said the trips sound like a nice opportunity that she might take advantage of.
Adam Burnfin, a fourth-year in comparative cultural studies, disagreed and didn’t think a bus trip to Cedar Point was an appropriate use of university funds.
