The 104 Shuttle-UM bus route to College Park Metro is changing again

By Katishi Maake

@thedbk

For The Diamondback

After less than a month of testing an expanded 104 Shuttle-UM bus route, the University of Maryland’s Department of Transportation Services decided to re-route the path in response to College Park residents’ concerns.

On Monday, the 104 bus to the College Park Metro station started running from Regents Drive Garage down Regents Drive, past the Main Administration Building, Memorial Chapel and Montgomery Hall before turning left onto Route 1 and right on Paint Branch Parkway.

The previous route crossed Route 1 on College Avenue and accessed the station from the opposite side of the tracks.

“When we talked with the city and realized that more conversation needed to be had before continuing running the route through those neighborhoods, that’s when we decided to make this change,” said Armand Scala, DOTS senior associate director.

Longtime residents of Old Town and Calvert Hills raised concerns with the new route’s frequency of travel and the noise and size of the buses, among other things, Scala said.

John Rigg, Calvert Hills Citizen Association president, said the association did not request the termination of the pilot but rather requested to bring together the university and College Park City Council to discuss residents’ concerns.

“Unfortunately, there was no real outreach to the community before the 104 route started,” Rigg said. “The net effective was that people woke up one day and then every three to five minutes there was a very large bus running past their house.”

Last semester, the university’s Residence Hall Association and Student Government Association both advocated for the expansion of bus service to the Metro to accommodate students who live on South Campus, which ultimately led to the pilot route in May.

However, SGA President Katherine Swanson and RHA Vice President Sasha Galbreath, who chaired the group’s Transportation Advisory Committee last semester and originally proposed the route DOTS will now use, said they do not see an issue with the change because the route still stops on South Campus.

“It’s really fine with me; I have no problem with it at all,” Swanson said. “I prefer that the bus actually went up [Route 1] and onto Paint Branch [Parkway]. I’m happy that the residents and university came up with a plan that works for all of us.”

But not everyone is happy with the change.

When senior computer science major Steven Davis received a UMD alert of a robbery that took place near his home on Calvert Road on May 16, he realized that traveling at night might not be safe.

When a Shuttle-UM bus stop sprouted near his house, Davis used the 104 bus to commute to his job on the campus. But now, he sometimes worries about traveling back late at night, he said.

“I always knew that bus would be there; I would usually leave my house and be good to go,” Davis said. “Now you need to walk down these dark streets, and you never know what is going to happen.”

Senior finance major Dan Moscatiello said he is excited about the pilot route. He’s living on Calvert Road near the Metro station in the fall and would otherwise have a long commute to class, had the 104 bus not changed to serve South Campus.

While he understands the concerns raised by longtime residents, he said he wishes DOTS had piloted the route during the fall semester so more people, including students and administrators, had the opportunity to experience the route’s benefits.

“In the summer, there are only so many people in town, so it doesn’t really give a good feedback to what it will actually be like,” he said. “If DOTS had waited until the fall, maybe they could have realistically seen what the demand would have been.”

Students are encouraged to come forward with their concerns so the SGA and RHA can bring them to the city and university, Swanson and Galbreath said.

DOTS plans on watching ridership and gauging public input during the summer, Scala said, to determine how the 104 bus route can best serve the university community.

“If the city wants to continue looking at the 104 through the Old Town and Calvert Hills neighborhoods, we are certainly willing to engage in that conversation,” he said. “There’s no end-all, be-all. We’re watching this route very closely and trying to make sure that we run the best 104 possible.”