SGA becomes more 'pedestrian,' Passes Public Transport Resolution

Author: Revathi Avasarala

During the Student Government Association's (SGA) second meeting of the year, held last Friday, the senators passed their first bill, a Public Transport Resolution. The bill, passed with twelve voting members in favor, two against and two abstaining, calls for an extension of the current Midd-Rides system.
Proposed by Mike Vilarelo, director of Public Safety and Student Relations, and seven other members of the Public Safety and Student Relations Committee, the bill's primary objective is to move Middlebury College towards becoming a more pedestrian campus. The bill attempts to facilitate this goal by making changes to Midd-Rides that will help provide a sense of safety for students wishing to travel into town or around campus at night, provide an environmentally friendly means of transportation and make town more accessible in general.
Debate regarding the bill centered on whether the bus would be call-in or have set routes and, if the routes were to be set, where it would stop and what days of the week it would be in service. The bill dictates that the bus not be call-in but will instead operate in a fixed schedule, which will tentatively include the latter half of the week and the weekend. The proposed route includes stops around campus, including McCullough, Kappa Delta Rho (KDR), Adirondack Street, Atwater and Davis, Frog Hollow (Ben and Jerry's), South Street and Weybridge.
The SGA believed this issue warranted immediate attention to ensure that students are provided with a beneficial expansion to a service already well taken-to by the student body at Middlebury, and also to keep up to par with transportation options available at other liberal arts schools across the country.
The SGA plans on launching an active advertising campaign for this project to ensure that the new system, once initiated, will be well taken advantage of. As Vilarelo stated, the expansion of the current Midd-Rides is a "service for students, developed by students, to fit the needs of students."