CrimsonRide

I am not a big fan of the CrimsonRide to say the least. I think that is slow, unreliable, wastes money, and causes pollution. There are 41 bus stops on campus. This is a ridiculously high amount of stops especially since some of them are no more than 300 feet away from each other. This plus all of the traffic congestion on campus makes the buses very slow. The buses cost over $150,000 a year to run off of their current diesel fuel, and that number will nothing but rise as time goes on. I think that the best solution to fix the problem of expensive diesel fuel is to run our buses on biodiesel. Biodiesel is much cheaper to buy, and it much cleaner to use. Diesel exhaust is very harmful for people to breath. It contains high amounts of sulfur which on in the atmosphere deplete the ozone. By running biodiesel in our buses, we can reduce the amount of sulfur content that we are putting into the ozone by almost 100%. The above picture is one that I took yesterday of an empty bus. With these buses driving around empty, our university is only losing money.
Even with all of these negatives the CrimsonRide does present a few good characteristics. It provides a shelter from the rain and a nice cool place to sit down when it is extremely hot outside. The CrimsonRide also provides a shuttle service on game days. This really helps with traffic problems on campus on days when Alabama plays at home.