Transportation
Making the “three campuses, one university” strategy work means providing better and more sustainable ways for people to get to our campuses from all over the region—and to travel from one campus to another.
We know that if students are still riding dirty diesel buses between North and South campuses five years from now that our plan will have failed. We also know that the existing public transit system doesn’t provide people with a convenient and reliable way to get to our campuses from around the metropolitan area.
The plan responds by offering support for improvements like Bus Rapid Transit and by reserving rights of way for future expansion of light rail or modern streetcar service.
Likewise, we know that students, faculty and staff can’t continue to come to campus mainly in single occupancy vehicles. It would consume too much land for parking, consume too much energy, and produce too much pollution.
By improving alternatives, providing incentives to use them, and phasing out the university’s subsidy of parking, the plan will reduce the number of lone drivers coming to campus and prevent UB from becoming a sea of vehicles.
The introduction of structured parking can even allow us to remove some surface parking, such as that on Main Street near Bailey Avenue, and thus make a more beautiful campus.
Better accommodation for bicycles is also provided for in the plan. Safer, better-marked bike paths and bikeways, plus services like bike storage, lockers, showers, and bike repair, can encourage an already burgeoning bicycle culture to grow even more.
What we know for sure is that our transportation future will be different—and the changes can help make for better campuses, too.
