Students wait at a CABS bus stop on College Road on Friday. Credit: Daniel Bush | Campus Photo Editor
The Campus Area Bus Service (CABS) provides more than 3 million rides annually across several routes, including the Buckeye Express (BE) and Campus Connector (CC), which travel along Woody Hayes Drive.
However, students traveling through the CABS system have been experiencing delays.
Ethan Heskett, a third-year in agricultural communication, said that the bus arrival times have become less predictable.
“Last semester, every couple minutes, like five minutes, max, consistently. This semester, it has not been the case,” Heskett said. “It could be [that] I get a bus right away. It could be a couple minutes. It could be 15. It just really depends.”
The unpredictability in CABS times have caused the buses to become more congested, with the longer wait times creating larger crowds at the bus stops.
“With the extended wait times, more people end up being at the bus stops, which creates a backlog,” Heskett said. “Not everybody’s going to get on every bus, especially on Agricultural Campus when they’re trying to get to Central Campus. And it might be two or three buses even before everybody that was there is able to get on a bus. And when you do get on a bus, it’s like sardines in there.”
According to Dan Hedman, a university spokesperson, the congestion along this corridor has increased due to ongoing construction and lane restrictions between Cannon Drive and Coffey Road.
“These lane restrictions are part of regular bridge inspection, sealing and maintenance work,” Hedman said. “Lanes were reduced from two lanes to one lane in each direction to allow for work to occur safely for workers while maintaining vehicular and bus traffic through the area.”
The work is expected to be completed in November.
Hedman said new traffic signal timing from Herrick Drive to Tuttle Park Place was recently implemented to ease congestion, and early observations suggest the changes are helping. He advised travelers to “plan ahead and allow extra time for travel during this period of road construction.”
Despite the challenges, Hedman said CABS continues to aim for schedule reliability. Hedman said that “CABS strives to hit its posted service times” and normally stays on schedule.
“The BE route operates every seven minutes during daytime hours and every 15 minutes after 6 p.m,” Hedman said. “The Campus Connector runs every 10 minutes during the day and every 15 minutes in the evening.”
For students like Heskett though, he said that these delays have made it difficult to arrive to classes on time.
“I’ve cut it close a couple times trying to get to my classes, which was rough,” Heskett said.
