Getting to school has never been a challenge for me personally. Throughout my time as a college student at the University of Nevada, Reno, I’ve had the benefit of having my own car to get to and from school. But I wanted to test out something that I wouldn’t normally try, which was figuring out how to get from my house to UNR using the bus system.
Having visited places like Madrid and Chicago made me fall in love with public transit as a way to get around, not only for the liberty of not having to deal with driving but as a way to see and get to know the city. I have used the bus transit here in Reno since I was a kid, but after a while it wasn’t something I did anymore as both my parents and I started transporting ourselves with our own vehicles.
Being a student in higher education and having free access to riding the buses, I decided to try it out again. “Students, faculty and staff have a new, free transportation option,” the RTC Washoe website indicates.
“It’s called a ED-Pass for UNR and an ED-Pass for TMCC and they are now able to use their UNR or TMCC IDs to RIDE any of RTC’s fixed-route buses for free as well as the RTC Carson Connector and FlexRIDE. “
In terms of figuring out how to get around, I planned my trip using Google Maps. It indicated it would take around an hour and thirty minutes to get to my destination. Living in Sparks, there aren’t many bus stops that I have access to, with the nearest one being about 30 minutes from my parent’s house. Most of the bus routes that run through Sparks tend to not go past north of Prater, which is the area where I live.
That seems to be a similar story for those outside the denser areas in the Reno-Sparks area, where access to routes seems to decline alongside the frequency of buses within those routes. For example, for those that live out in Stead, Route 7 is the only route that delivers to that area. And the bus comes in intervals of 30 minutes, which can be affected by construction, weather and traffic.
My trip consisted of three routes, two of which are known as the Lincoln Line and the Virginia Line, and what’s significant about these lines it that they are more frequent, coming to their stops every 10 minutes. But my first route was Route 21, which runs past Legends and the Marina and ends at Centennial Plaza. After a long walk to the stop, I arrived but found a sign posted, which stated that the stop was closed due to construction.
The sign stated that the stop would be closed due to construction, but would be an active stop if the cones didn’t cover the right lane. This is something we sometimes forget about as independent drivers is that construction doesn’t only affect us in our vehicles but people who rely on buses as well.
This confusing sign made me look for the nearest stop unaffected by construction online, which was about a ten minute walk south from where I was. Right when I got there, I checked the time and saw the next bus would arrive in approximately 10 minutes.
When the bus finally did arrive, I decided to take the front seat. I ad the option to sit anywhere since the bus was pretty empty. In about 15 minutes, the bus was at Centennial, which is where I would transfer over to the Lincoln Line. Later on, I transferred over to Virginia, which was pretty easy, especially since I didn’t have to pay every time I got on the bus.
This is where the rest of my journey to UNR went fairly smoothly, which makes sense since my last two routes are intended to be more efficient. But, imagine if this was the same way for the other routes?
I believe that having the adequate supply first would create the demand. I am sure there’s students just like me that would like to use these services if only there more frequent bus lines.