The bus less traveled
Last Thursday’s CUMTD Airbus ride was approximately my tenth lonely ride to the small, two gate Champaign Willard Airport. At most, I’ve shared the bus to the airport with one or two other passengers, and the return bus trip home from the airport is even more likely to be a solo trip. So, I can’t help but wonder: Why? The general busing system is well-utilized; why not this route?
To be open with the reader, I’m usually not a bus rider, as I prefer a bicycle for getting around Champaign-Urbana. Riding my bike to the airport, however, is complicated by baggage, longish length, and the whims of CU weather. And so, the trip to the airport is one of the few times I prefer busing to cycling. I obviously prefer “green” transportation, but must one be an environmentalist to ride the bus to the airport? This isn’t the only benefit of riding the Airbus, is it?
First, I’m going to look at the boring, but all-important financial reasons that influence personal transportation decisions. What’s the personal cost of going to the airport? Would taking the bus save enough money to make it economically desirable? Well, for me the airport is eight miles away from my home in West Urbana. Getting dropped off at the airport is a 16-mile round trip, which at 22 miles per gallon would result in a $1.80 fuel cost (assuming $2.50 per gallon). So at this point, the fuel costs for getting dropped off at the airport are greater than the measly $1 bus fare. If we were to take into account the several thousand dollar yearly cost of owning and maintaining a personal vehicle, financial incentive to bus rather than drive increases. But, considering only direct expenses associated with a trip to the airport, the Airbus is still the clear winner for almost anyone in the central Champaign-Urbana area within walking distance of the Airbus route.
There are some taxi and van options that can move one between home and the airport, but at more than $13 per trip, that’s not on my radar as competitive. Due to extenuating circumstances, I once had to take the LEX Express van in order to get home after a business trip. The van toured the entirety of Champaign before meandering over into Urbana, and took longer than the CUMTD bus. But, curiously, there were four people on the Lex van, which is four times more than I usually see on the Airbus. With regards to the taxis in C-U, I was chatting with a recent co-passenger on the Airbus and she mentioned that she first tried to call a taxi service for the trip. The Airbus had been a backup measure. The taxi service said that they would have to pick her up at 7 a.m. (several hours early) since they were busy shuttling school children. So, I wonder if inconvenient scheduling and minimal advertising keep ridership on the Airbus down.
Lest we forget that time is money, we’ll talk about another high hurdle that the Airbus must clear in order to attract passengers. It takes longer for me to get from point A (my house) to point B (the airport) if I choose to take the Airbus; it is a ten minute walk followed by a 25 minute bus ride. It only takes 15 minutes to drive to the airport or get dropped off, although getting dropped off means a wasted 15 minute return trip for my wife. In addition, the Airbus has a limited schedule, which runs approximately every hour during the day and stops in the evening before the latest flights arrive at the airport. If I take the bus to the airport, I’ll probably spend an average of 30 minutes longer at the airport than if I drove myself or was getting picked up. Despite the fact that there is free internet and comfy places to sit and work, those thirty minutes may seem like wasted time to some making their airport transportation decision. When you convert 30 minutes of wasted time to the all important dollar, the greenbacks you saved taking the bus start to evaporate.
Perhaps another reason people don’t ride the Airbus is the perception of less predictability and control. The airport crowd is often a little different than the average university population, since plane tickets would cut significantly into beer money and thin graduate stipends. There is some university influence, since you can’t get away from that in C-U, but it is definitely watered down. The stereotypical business airport traveler is older, living in the suburbs, has an established family, and is not comfortable with the vagaries of public transit. This traveler probably never considered riding the bus. The schedule is arbitrary. What happens if I miss the bus? How do you do transfers, anyway? The bus is for poor people. With all these unknowns that seem to be minor issues to the seasoned transit veteran, the stereotypical business traveler would have trouble making the leap to a bus from personal car travel.
The last and most touchy-feely component affecting ridership on the Airbus is the cultural construct of sending off and greeting family and friends at the airport. The countless movies and shows with scenes of joyous embraces and firm handshakes have made it some sort of insult to decline a ride home from the airport. If no one picks me up from the airport, should I feel lonely and dejected while waiting for the Airbus? Isn’t the bus ride home just another part of the point A to B trip? How is the thirty minute wait for the bus different from the three hour layover in Detroit? The difference is that I’m the only one waiting for the bus at the airport. It’s lonely.
One might ask, if no one is riding the Airbus, then why does CUMTD run regular service? I certainly asked that, as I felt guilty using the Airbus as my personal limousine service. The route is subsidized by the University of Illinois. Since the University has the Institute of Aviation right next door to the airport, and is also financially tied to the airport itself, it has an obligation to provide transit options to its students, many of whom do not have cars. As it was explained to me by a CUMTD employee, subsidizing the CUMTD Airbus route was less expensive than funding an on-demand taxi service, and has the added benefit of being a community mass transit resource. This is yet another reason to love living in a University town. A route like the Airbus wouldn’t exist without the transportation needs of the student population.
What did I take away from this extended consideration of transit preferences relative to the #27 Airbus? Well, I’m still convinced that if people put more thought into their transportation choices, bus ridership would increase. Unfortunately, without a radical cultural change, I don’t foresee a big shift happening. It feels like biting the hand that feeds, but it also seems silly that the University would keep subsidizing the nearly riderless Airbus in the face of likely funding shortfalls and tuition increases. Hopefully this article will generate some good dialogue among Smile Politely readers (and beyond), and perhaps give me someone to talk to on my next trip to the airport.
6 comments
I’ve thought about this. I’ve come to the conclusion that most of my flights leave at 6 am, at which time the airbus is just lurching out from the bus barn.
The 10 o’clock flight is more likely to ferry business travelers—or people willing to pay more for convenience. That’s why it’s harder to get a cheap seat on those flights.
Business travelers have no use for a half-hour bus ride as a prelude to their flight.
Zeleni
I typically fly out of Chicago for convenience and environmental reasons. Since any flight I would take from Willard tends to stop in Chicago, it’s more efficient to take the train or carpool to Chicago. Plus, I have heard several accounts of a flight delay from Willard to Chicago causing missed flights.
I also avoid the Air Bus because of a particularly bad experience. I didn’t realize it was an express service and hopped on to get near the stadium. I requested a stop around there, but was told it was express and they wouldn’t stop til Willard. So I bussed there, sat around for 10 minutes for the return voyage, and came all the way back. It added an extra 40 minutes or so to my trip. I should have realized it was express and what it entailed, but it definitely wasn’t pleasant and has left me avoiding the route.
Maybe it makes sense to combine it with the Yellow which already gets halfway there?
Gary
I’ll second Rob’s notion that the AirBus starts running too late in the morning, and stops running too early as well. This is a major planning oversight, in my opinion. CMI isn’t exactly a hub for the airline industry, so most of the flights I take to or from Champaign require a connection somewhere. This means that they have to leave earlier in the day and arrive later at night. Unfortunately, the AirBus schedule doesn’t take this into account, making it impossible to use the service at these times.
A second scheduling problem is that the AirBus tends not to run on weekends or U of I breaks. This is also a bit ridiculous. As a U of I graduate employee, if I’ve travelled somewhere and want to return in time for work on Monday, I’ll need to take a Sunday evening flight (and, as noted earlier, CMI’s connections mean that this will arrive late Sunday night). However, the last Sunday AirBus leaves CMI at 5pm when classes are in session. And even that service tends to be cut on the last Sunday of a break.
In my experience, when the AirBus is actually running, it’s infinitely more efficient than calling a cab to pick me up at home. The cab companies in this town are horrible, and in the 20-30 times I’ve scheduled rides to the airport (calling ahead, scheduling, confirming, reconfirming), less than 20% have picked me up within half an hour of the appointed time.
So the AirBus doesn’t have to try hard to be more efficient than a cab. I just wish it had better hours so I could actually use it.
Tony C.
Thought I’d update this with a comment based on a recent international work trip.
Last week I went on a work trip to Genoa, Italy. One interesting note was that I rented a car at CMI and drove up to ORD for the international flight. I didn’t want to risk the tempermental commuter flight between CMI and ORD causing me to miss my flight. This is the opposite of efficient, but I’ve been stranded too many times at CMI or ORD due to this issue. Not something I was willing to risk on a week long international trip.
Now here’s the Airbus related stuff. I stayed an extra day in Genoa, Italy to walk around so I didn’t have a ride back to the airport. Instead I took the Velobus from the train station to the airport. It was 4 Euro, which is way more than the $1 (or zero for students) in for the C-U Airbus. There were only two stops on the way to the airport, instead of the many looping stops in C-U. Most interestingly, the bus had 14 passengers, most of them getting on at the train station.
This sort of blew my mind, but at the same time made sense. Driving and owning a car in Genoa is extremely expensive. The parking is horrible, the traffic is awful, and the streets are sometimes just barely wider than the vehicle in some of the older neighborhoods. Most folks get by with just scooters, and those are tough for hauling luggage.
Genoa is also very dense, and therefore the urban living population isn’t far from the transit stops. There also isn’t a stigma that public transit is for poor folks. Everyone rides it.
I wouldn’t call Genoa a poster child for enlightened transportation planning. Overall it seemed more like loosely controlled transportation chaos, especially with the nearly suicidal scooter drivers. Despite the transportation chaos of the single occupancy vehicles and the crazy scooters, the transit system looked pretty well developed.
Hopefully I’ll get to head back and explore more.
Willard is one AirTran (or similar airline, like the defunct ATA) from being a fantastic airport.
If you could
1) book a competitively priced flight that
2) departed after the sun comes up, and
3) book it at any time, even the day of departure
that Airbus thing would suddenly become a lot more interesting. And Willard would get a lot of the BMI traffic.
Bill Ferguson
The University does not subsidize the Airbus. For decades bus transportation to the airport was provided expressly for Institute of Aviation students. This service was paid for by the Institute of Aviation, not campus as a whole. Some of you may even remember the old orange or blue buses.
When this method was no longer economically feasible the Institute of Aviation enterered into an agreement with the MTD to provide a similar service for Institute of Aviation students. And it’s the schedule of these students’ classes that drives the scheduling of the bus. One benefit of using the MTD is that unlike the previous in-house service which prohibited non-Institute riders due to insurance and other matters, the MTD agreement allows for the general public to ride the same bus, if it works into their schedule.
Again, this service is paid for exclusively by the Institute of Aviation. But the public is welcome to ride along.
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