BERNSTEIN: New Rutgers bus system is primed for failure

Publication: Daily Targum, , Rutgers University , New Brunswick, NJ

BERNSTEIN: New Rutgers bus system is primed for failure

Daniel BernsteinApr 26, 2021, 4:00 AM

Photo by Wikimedia.orgWhile students are all excited to get back to campus, the altered bus schedule may end up becoming a logistical nightmare for all.

I am sure you have heard, by now, about Rutgers University's plans to restructure its bus system this upcoming fall. In an attempt "to provide more frequent bus service between each campus," the University is stripping down the number of bus stops from 32 to 10, reducing the number of routes on weekdays from nine to six.

Perhaps most daring of all, the University will cast off such cryptic naming conventions of bus routes as "REXL" and "H" in favor of primary and secondary colors (there is, of course, no "red" bus route — the chromatically interchangeable but phonetically dissimilar "scarlet" is preferred).

I appreciate what Rutgers is trying to accomplish here. Students speak of our dear school's transportation system using a rich body of varied and flavorful descriptors, only a few of which lack expletives considered verboten.

Long waits, routes resembling a Cy Twombly scribble and buses packed to obscene passenger densities are not the sorts of hallmarks of the campus experience of which alumni remember fondly.

And if Rutgers must flirt with a bus system of a...