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Winter weather has forced an all-time high number of students to forego driving or walking and hitch a ride on a Go West Transit bus.

Bus riders set record

By: Rob Amaefule

Posted: 2/1/08

With the winter season coming to its peak and temperatures dropping to extreme lows, more students are relying on public transportation as the primary method to arrive at their destinations. The Go West Transit System, which is the lone public transit in Macomb, is experiencing a record number of riders due to the dependence of students and civilians on and off campus.

"The number of riders that we've had throughout the beginning of the winter season just signals the growth that we've continued to have over a period of time," said Jude Kiah, director of Go West Transit. "Cold weather has played a big role in the growth and also the fact that a growing number of college students are more reluctant to drive their cars around campus with recent gas expenses."

More than 61,000 of those passengers were tallied during the week of Jan. 22 to Jan. 28, which set an all-time record for most riders in a week. That beat the previous record of 58,153, which also included the three-day Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend in 2007. Another milestone was reached when 12,367 passengers were recorded on Jan. 17.

"We're very excited about carrying over 60,000 students in a week," said Kiah, who is serving his 10th year as director. "Just the idea of carrying that many people in a town this size means that you've got some penetration, that people are riding it often and it's just not a one-time service. We are looking for these numbers to grow as well in the near future."

Growth has been the principle of Go West Transit over the past decade. In 1999, the year in which Go West Transit was founded, it only had an estimated 12,000 riders per week. Currently, the transportation system is benefiting from a steady average of 55,000 passengers per week. About 70 percent of the total commuters come from the Route 1 (red) and Route 2 (green) buses.

"It has just been steady growth over the past couple years," Kiah said. "In 1999, we were a small business. Now we've gotten a lot bigger, earning a good reputation and gaining trust from a lot of people."

There are 28 buses currently owned by Go West Transit.

"There's not that much of a difference in how many buses we run per season," Kiah said. "However, in a week in which we get a figure like what we did in the third week of January, we use a method called 'crunches' in which we do use extra buses to accommodate for an abundant number of riders."

Go West Transit has just added Thursday night services to its "drunk bus" schedule. The additional day adds an average of 500 extra people to the total of 4,000 orange route passengers each week.