ORT route increasing in popularity
Posted on Sunday, October 12, 2008
BENTON COUNTY - An increasing number of Northwest Arkansas Community College students and faculty are making use of a new amenity - a free ride to the school.
An agreement between Ozark Regional Transit and the college that was announced Sept. 2 allows staff, students and faculty who can present NWACC identification cards to ride the buses for free. The new initiative is paid for with money from the cities of Rogers and Bentonville, Benton and Washington counties and NWACC. The college is getting the money for the endeavor through raised fees that were introduced this fall, NWACC President Becky Paneitz said last month.
Another aspect of the new partnership is the addition of a commuter express route, which runs between Fayetteville and Bentonville twice a day. It only goes to certain stops on the usual ORT route so that students riding the express won't have to wait through a large number of stops.
Kelly Henderson, president of the Student Activities and Advisory Board, said that when the route first started, only a couple of students were taking advantage of it. So college administrators enlisted the SAAB members' help in finding out how to get students interested.
They quickly found out that it was more about getting information about the route out there, Henderson said. There are now about a dozen riders on the route at a given time.
"We found we needed to get the word out because it wasn't as known at first," she said.
The students that SAAB members interviewed regarding the route made several suggestions on improving the program, which will be discussed with the President's Cabinet at a later time.
Henderson said the new route and free rides will help students in the short term, but mostly in the long term - which many students don't consider. For example, she said, if a student spends $ 20 a week on gasoline just to get to the college, that may not seem like much.
"But $ 20 a week adds up," she said.
FEEDBACK:
Something to say about this topic? Submit a Letter to the Editor online
