As part of Georgetown’s effort to reduce its carbon footprint by 50 percent by 2020, the University has begun using bio diesel to fuel the GUTS buses and other university vehicles. In a University press release, Vice President for Facilities and Student Housing Karen Frank explained that the fuel reduces carbon emissions at low cost to the University, since engines do not have to be converted to run on the fuel.
The fuel is 80 percent diesel petroleum and 20 percent biodiesel. While that may seem like a small percentage, it has contributed to the 17 percent reduction in emissions over the past three years. And that’s not all the University has been doing—those nifty Jesuit golf carts are electric vehicles, and the Outdoor Education program has a van that runs entirely on vegetable oil collected from local restaurants.
Props to Georgetown for getting serious about carbon emission reduction—now howsabout getting rid of those Styrofoam containers in Leo’s?
If you don’t recall how neighborhood residents of Georgetown reacted when administrators presented the 2010 Campus Plan back in November, let me remind you of the words of Advisory Neighborhood Commission Chair Ron Lewis when he heard that adding 1,000 parking spaces in the University was part of the plan:
“There is a problem,” he said. “And the problem is that people who come to your classes are jamming up our streets by parking. It’s not our role, it’s not our job to figure out the solution—it’s the University’s. But there is the problem. And unless the problem goes away, it’s going to be a problem for the plan.”
Now, as the end of January nears—at which point Georgetown administrators have said they hope to submit the Plan to the ANC for its first stage of review—neighbors are no less content than they were in November about the proposed 2010 Campus Plan.
Jennifer Altemus (COL ‘88), the president of the Citizens Association of Georgetown, sent a dense letter to President John DeGioia last Thursday which she provided to the Voice. The letter enumerates the neighbors’ grievances with the current draft of the Campus Plan.
“We are extremely disappointed with the process thus far. It appears that community input at the GU sponsored meetings has been ignored,” she wrote. “This list is by no means comprehensive but these issues represent the priority concerns of the community that will be raised during the plan review and approval process.”
Read the full letter and a summary, after the jump.
If you’re heading to the Verizon Center on Saturday to watch the Hoyas trounce (we hope) American University, your ‘best’ options for getting there—splitting a cab six ways, taking the GUTS bus to the Dupont Metro stop to Chinatown, or worst of all, taking the GUTS bus to the Rosslyn Metro stop to Metro Center to Chinatown—are all a real hassle.
But if things shake out the way Georgetown University Student Association President Calen Angert (MSB ‘11) thinks they soon will, students will have a fourth, better option for getting to weekend games sometime during this men’s basketball season—buses that go directly to the Verizon Center.
GUSA Deputy Chief of Staff for Student Life Mike Meaney (SFS ’12) recently spoke to Abe’s Transportation, which runs Georgetown’s weekend transportation, which told him that they were happy to change the routes. He is preparing to speak to the director of transportation of the Athletic Department to work out the change with them.
“I don’t know if this will get off the ground before Christmas or after Christmas,” Angert said, but they are on track to happen this season.
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS CLUB FUNDING: Senator Matthew Hoyt (COL ’12—Alumni Square/Village B) introduced a bill to allocate $300 to the International Relations Club to host a musical group called “White Flag” dealing with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Speaker Adam Talbot (COL ’12—LXR) said the Israeli and Palestinian performers work together to use music to promote discussion about peace and social justice. SAC and various other groups are also co-sponsoring the event. The bill passed unanimously.
Senator Colton Malkerson (COL ’13—Harbin 2-5) pointed out that this would be the kind of event the new GUSAFund would sponsor in the future.
“It’s an introduction to the idea of GUSA finding part in student funding,” Hoyt agreed. “When a group isn’t able to [attain] enough funding from the different funding boards they can come to GUSA, especially for such student-wide, campus community events.”
“THE FUND” PROGRESS: Speaking of the new GUSA Fund, GUSA President Calen Angert (MSB ’11) says he intends to convene the Funding Board November 23 to get the Fund off the ground. Additionally, the executive plans to start an application process for members of the Fund. Talbot said, “It will take a couple of weeks to pull it all together.”
GUSA will also be holding a “Club Summit” to get input from club leaders and announce the findings of the Club Funding Survey. The Summit will be held this Saturday at 1 p.m. in Healy 104 and will be livestreamed.
The last time University officials discussed the transportation aspect of the 2010 Campus Plan back in May, they said they were tentatively planning to send the Dupont GUTS bus through the Canal Road entrance, meaning the shuttle route would be extended to the experimental 4.7 mile test route permanently. At last night’s meeting presenting the University’s first draft of its transportation plans, University officials made it clear that the rerouting isn’t just tentative—it’s now part of the University’s preferred draft plan.
Vice President for Facilities and Student Housing Karen Frank, who presented the University’s transportation plans to neighbors last night, explained that Georgetown would like to build a loop road on the west side of campus (as illustrated above) which would allow more buses to use the Canal Road entrance.
When the University requested the rights to build the Canal Road entrance in its last ten year plan it promised neighbors that the new entrance would be used for GUTS buses. Georgetown students, faculty and staff have been spared from the extended route thus far thanks to the fact that the current set-up of the parking lot near McDonough makes it nearly impossible for buses to turn around on campus.
The other problem is that between 6:15 a.m. and 10:15 a.m. on weekdays—prime rush hour time—drivers are not permitted to make left turns off of the Canal Road entrance. If the University could get the left-turn prohibition lifted and build the loop road, all buses besides the Wisconsin Avenue route would be able to enter and exit through Canal Road.
The potential roadblock for the plan is the Park Service, which owns the land west of campus that abuts the proposed loop road. While the road would be on GU property, the University has an agreement with the Park Service to only use that part of campus for service vehicles. Frank said she is pushing for the definition of “service vehicles” to be any vehicle “dedicated to the University,” which would include GUTS buses. However, Frank said, the Park Service is “not real easy to work with.”
GUSA has compiled the results of their “Omnibus Student Survey,” the summer survey which polled the student body on everything from GUSA’s structure, student diversity, and GUTS buses, to student safety, academics, and the free newspaper program and earned its chief organizer, GUSA President Calen Angert (MSB `11) high marks on the Angertometer.
Here’s what the 1,020 student respondents said, according to an email from Angert (because of a glitch with UIS, the are no breakdowns available for individual questions):
29 percent of students said they felt unrepresented by GUSA last year
77 percent of respondents rated GUSA’s student advocacy track record “poor” or were unsure of how they felt, but 20 percent approved of their past programming
66 percent felt that Georgetown is a diverse campus and the same number felt there is “sufficient programming, as organized by faculty and staff, on campus that engages students on the subject of diversity”
Over 90 percent said they would support a continuation of Saturday GUTS bus routes and an expanded GUTS route to include a bus to a grocery store (GUSA recently accomplished the latter)
91 percent said they felt safe on campus, but two-thirds of respondents would like to see increased DPS patrols
92 percent agreed that “the university fosters an environment that is conducive to intellectual learning.”
89 percent said that they had read a free newspaper provided on campus by the Collegiate Readership Program that was recently suspended due to funding issues
After the jump, see all the results Angert provided in his e-mail!
According to Georgetown’s Director of Media Relations Andy Pino, GUTS will be offering runs to the Rosslyn Safeway on weekends.
The change will combine the Rosslyn and Dupont Circle routes; GUTS buses will go from campus to Rosslyn, stopping on North Oak Street near the Safeway there, back to campus and then to Dupont. Weekday service will not change.
Last semester, Vox ran a handful of interviews with members of Georgetown’s local government, the Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner. We’re breathing new life into “Better Know an ANC Commissioner” this Fall, and we’re expanding it to include other local politicos, too.
For this edition, Vox spoke with Jennifer Altemus (COL `88), the East Georgetown resident who succeeded Denise Cunningham as the President of the Citizens’ Association of Georgetown in May. CAG, along with the ANC, is going to try to exercise a strong hand in the formation of the University’s Ten Year Plan in the coming months, and can usually be found backing new noise and trash policies in Georgetown.
Below, Altemus tells us what CAG members want from University administrators and how her time at Georgetown as a student influences her understanding of town-gown issues.
As a private community group, what ability does CAG have to affect issues pertaining to the University and surrounding neighborhood?
I guess it really depends on what the issue is. We write letters, and we can protest liquor licenses. As far as Georgetown goes, and its upcoming Ten Year Plan, I think we do influence the Zoning Board. If we approve something, it makes it that much easier to pass. We will also be working very closely with the [Advisory Neighborhood Commission] on that, and they take our advice pretty seriously. We’ve already had a number of meetings on the [Ten Year Plan].
Greater Greater Washington, a blog about smart growth in the D.C. Metropolitan area, tackled the GUTS bus question yesterday and concluded that everyone would be better off if we just relied on the D:
Why does Georgetown need a shuttle from campus to Dupont Circle at all? Right now, there’s a bus that goes right from the Reservoir Road side of campus to the same intersection of 21st and Q that GUTS uses: the D3 and D6 buses. The route is identical, except the D buses stop on Reservoir instead of looping around Lot A just inside campus …
We could improve transit for all if Georgetown applied the money it spends on the Georgetown-Dupont route to WMATA to add service to the D3 and D6, and subsidize students’ rides on them. If the D buses stop too often along the way, we could even create a D9 express bus … Besides, the GUTS schedule estimates a 15 minute trip from Georgetown University to Dupont Circle, while the WMATA schedule actually claims it’s even less than that.
It’s an interesting idea in theory, but there would be some major hurdles. Setting aside concerns about how mind-numbingly complex and the occasionally unreliable D.C.’s bus system is, would the University really be able (or willing) to negotiate with WMATA to create a suitable express route?
And, if we managed that, how would bus rides be paid for? Would the University provide SmarTrip cards to everyone and, if so, how would it be administered? If the stalled Student Metro Discount campaign is any indication, negotiating large-scale deals with WMATA isn’t quite as easy as it might sound. And if the University doesn’t subsidize the trips, would riders have to pay out of pocket?
If the University eliminated GUTS buses but worked with WMATA to augment the D line, would that do anything to pacify the neighbors? Also, GGW’s suggestion doesn’t take into account any GUTS lines besides Dupont. Even if we could work something out for that route, what about the others?
But what say you—would expanded D line coverage be an acceptable GUTS substitute?
Vox Populi is the staff blog of the Georgetown Voice, a weekly newsmagazine at Georgetown University. Opinions expressed in posts are those of their author alone unless otherwise stated.
As part of Georgetown’s effort to reduce its carbon footprint by 50 percent by 2020, the University has begun using bio diesel to fuel the GUTS buses and other university vehicles. In a University press release, Vice President for Facilities and Student Housing Karen Frank explained that the fuel reduces carbon emissions at low cost to the University, since engines do not have to be converted to run on the fuel.
Ah! Buses!
Survey Says…
Last semester, Vox ran a handful of interviews with members of Georgetown’s local government, the Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner. We’re breathing new life into “Better Know an ANC Commissioner” this Fall, and we’re expanding it to include other local politicos, too.
Could GUTS be a thing of the past?
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