Issue date: 12/13/07 Section: Editorial/Opinion

Here we are. The Thursday before finals and the last issue of The Spectator. I know you are all devastated that you won't be able to keep up on UW-Eau Claire news for the next four weeks. But I assure you, the staff of The Spectator will be keeping tabs on all of the events that go on this winter that could affect you, and you'll be able to read our award-winning coverage when you get back.

As for my last column, I thought I would touch on something that has worn on me this semester - bus etiquette, more so the apparent laziness of some people who live on-campus by riding the bus down the hill when they could just as quickly walk, thus allowing the off-campus riders to have a comfortable ride to campus. I hate to leave on such a sour note, but I think it needs to be said so that people can understand what they're doing and how ridiculous it is.

Each morning, I walk out of my apartment near the Bollinger Athletic Fields. It's a short, 30 second walk to the bus stop where about 15 of us off-campus riders wait. When the bus pulls up, there are 20 or 30 people on it already. What for? I doubt that many people got on at the Bollinger parking lot or the stop next to the gas station on Stein Boulevard. The only other stop before that one is in front of Oak Ridge Hall on upper campus.

It is the most frustrating thing in the world when I have to stand to come down to class when it's 40 degrees outside and sunny and all of those who are on the bus already are perfectly able-bodied people who could have made the short trip down the hill to class. Heaven forbid they have to walk down the hill in the morning.

I get so confused when the time frame is much shorter, the exercise benefits are greater and the aesthetic benefits are better.

If you start out in front of Oak Ridge, it is .83 miles down to the furthest academic building, Hibbard Humanities Hall, if you take the roads. That is, if you go down University Drive towards Towers Hall, make a right past the Towers' field towards the Towers' parking lot, then a left past Towers and a left down the Garfield Avenue hill. That distance is much longer than the path most students usually take when heading to class. Walking past Governors Hall and Horan Hall and down the stairs to the hill is still shorter than going past the tennis courts and down the stairs between Hilltop Center and Horan Hall.

At any rate, the bus trip takes an average of 15 minutes from Oak Ridge Hall down to Kjer Theater. The same amount of time it would take to walk at a 4 mph pace, which is typical of most peoples' walking speeds.

Continued...

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