When you’re in a rush to get to class on time, the best thing to see coming up the road is those red, white and black buses , but the worst thing is the flashing banner across the front that says, “Bus Full.”   That just makes my heart drop because I know I’ve got a long ways to go and a short time to get there.

How many times have you waited at a bus stop of a good bit of time only to have the bus that you need to ride come by and be full? How depressing is it to be ready to get to class early only to have to walk or run to class and end up squeaking in just barely on time?

I think N.C . State transportation is great. Don’t get me wrong, with a campus of almost  34,000 students and about 8,000 faculty and staff, figuring out all the transportation issues has got to be difficult. But with all the improvements the N.C . State Department of Transportation keeps making, I have one improvement that I think would be great.

We all know when the weather is bad, the buses are always going to be packed. No one likes walking in the cold or in the rain. But, even when the weather is good, when the Route 7 – Wolflink comes down Dan Allen at 10:00 a.m . on Tuesdays and Thursdays, the bus is always full. Now, I understand that earlier or later buses probably aren’t full, but that’s the bus I need to ride. While some people could probably rearrange their schedule to catch an earlier bus, I can’t. I have to get from Dan Allen to Poe Hall in 15 minutes or less.

That’s hard for me, and I hate to have to run/walk to make it to class on time, and the few minutes I spend waiting for the bus could be spent walking to class, if I knew the bus was full. The Wolfline buses are a great part of going to school here, I just wish I could use them instead of being frustrated that they’re full.

So, with all the other great improvements N.C . State Transportation has made, I’d like to suggest another one. Create a way for us to see on the website when a bus is full. I know the buses show “Bus Full” when they’re full, but we still have to wait and see the bus before we can see if it’s full or not.

Think about it. It’s possible to have a constantly updated map that shows where the buses are and how long it will take them to get to different stops, which I think is super awesome. Making a new part of that map that shows whether or not the bus is full would save a lot of students’ time.

N.C . State Transportation, you’ve done so many other great things with the buses and transportation around here, I think you have it in you to do this one more thing that would make the buses even better than they already are.