Save the UCSC Night Owl Buses for 2011-2012

To the Santa Cruz Metropolitan Transit District, and Larry Pageler, Director of UC Santa Cruz Transportation and Parking Services (TAPS):

We, the undersigned, protest the proposed elimination of the 16 and 19 Night Owl bus routes. This service reduction would delete all city buses running after midnight, seven days a week, in the greater UCSC campus and West Side neighborhoods.

This may negatively affect local businesses whose main late night clientele are UCSC students, such as Saturn's Cafe, Cafe Pergolesi, various bars and clubs, and others. In our current economy, we must support local business owners as much as possible, not limit the amount of customers they can bring in.
This also affects UCSC affiliates, such as on-campus staff who work late hours. Similarly, freshman and sophomores who live on campus and are unable to acquire parking permits depend on these buses to go to and from their residences.

Additionally, these service reductions raise serious safety concerns. There are no lit pedestrian paths up Bay Street for students to reach those neighborhoods or the UCSC campus. Drunken driving accidents on the weekends may increase as students make poor decisions because of the lack of safe alternatives. This year has also seen increased violence downtown and on West Side neighborhoods, including the horrible rise in sexual assaults. We should not be cutting ways for students to safely get around in this current climate.

UCSC students pay a transportation fee to ride SCMTD buses for free. We demand that UCSC Transportation and Parking Services (TAPS) work with the Metro to guarantee these essential bus routes are preserved. With large fee increases at the university this year, we call on the administration to reallocate budget money to this necessary service.

We demand the Santa Cruz Metropolitan Transit District preserve bus services, which are both popular among and integral to the UCSC student body.