Upon enrolling in a University course, freshers are met with one major problem – how are they going to travel to the campus?
Many who use public transport complain about arriving late; those who use their own car worry about finding a parking space, and those who cycle are often disappointed by the state of the roads.
With numerous schemes and ideas being thrown around, is there anything else that can be done to solve the problem of getting to University as comfortably and quickly as possible?
The University Students Council (KSU) has introduced numerous schemes to promote cycling and carpooling, most notably the KSU Carpool Initiative, which aimed to create 140 additional parking spaces at University by reserving Car Park 4 – adjacent to the central Quadrangle – for carpoolers. Transport Funds, which provided students with €10,000 to reduce bus fares, was another prominent incentive that aimed to significantly reduce the persistent parking problem at University.
However, despite tenacious attempts by KSU and others to reduce the need for University students to use their cars, the parking problem on campus has become so infamous it has become part of the students’ experience.
Park-and-ride plans were put forward, parking complexes were drawn up and hundreds of euros spent by the State in an effort to increase parking spaces – to no avail.
The survey found that students may spend up to four hours travelling in one day, simply to attend lectures
Eighteen-year-olds will now be able to ride the bus for free, a proposal which did not seem to go down well with some University students, who remarked that it might be too little too late to change the mentality that getting a car is pivotal to students’ independence. Others were left wondering one year of using the bus for free would be enough to encourage young people to keep using public transport indefinitely? Is the endemic car problem in our society intertwined with the inefficiency of public transport, which puts people off using buses?
A survey conducted among 100 University students found that the initiatives undertaken to date have not been as successful as desired. Indeed, only one per cent of respondents carpooled with friends.
Over half of the participants still use their car as their primary means of transportation, whereas 23 per cent of University students use buses. It also found that students may spend up to four hours travelling in one day, simply to attend lectures.
Results clearly show that students still rely on their own means of transportation to get to University, and those who use buses are often eager to get their driving licence to avoid public transport.
Initiatives have clearly been unsuccessful and efforts to encourage use of public transport have largely failed and students are being pushed to using their own cars. Mentalities that anything other than one’s own car is inefficient need to be destroyed before any endeavour to encourage more students to use public transport can be successful.
Denise Grech is a writer for Insite.