With fewer students on campus and fluctuating fuel prices, CyRide needs to either raise student fees or cut its services.

The ISU bus service is looking at a $196,000 budget shortfall, assuming fuel prices and enrollment remain steady.

Cutbacks could include eliminating the gold route, which serves the greek neighborhood; dropping evenings on the orange route; changing the red route frequency from 10 to 20 minutes; and changing the frequency of other routes, depending on ridership.

Bob Bourne, director of CyRide, will present budget issues and possible solutions at a special student fee committee meeting at 9 a.m. Wednesday in room 2350 of Beardshear Hall.

“If there is no fee increase, we will have to cut services,” Bourne said. If a fee increase is approved, changes would begin in spring 2005. Lower attendance and higher fuel prices are driving the budget shortfall. Bourne said the cost of fuel alone accounts for $70,000 of the deficit, and university records indicate enrollment is down 1,000 students this semester.

CyRide receives $45 from each student per semester through the Government of the Student Body. Bourne said the budget could fluctuate $20,000 positively or negatively, depending on next semester’s enrollment. He also said ridership is down 10 percent from last year.

Bourne said a fee increase of $6 a student a semester is necessary to maintain CyRide’s current level of service.

“We’re going to have to be creative, to find ways to provide as much circulation but not as much frequency,” said Sophia Magill, GSB president.

Stephanie Stall, GSB director of facilities, safety and transportation, said the senate committee is going to recommend a $3 to $4 increase in student fees.

“Bourne is always willing to deal with student concerns,” Stall said.

Stall said with an increase of a few dollars, there will be minimal service reductions. She said these include changing intervals from 10 to 20 minutes on routes with low ridership.

Bourne said changes in federal transit funding, which would give CyRide $200,000 to $400,000 a year for capital improvements, are more than a year behind schedule. The changes involve setting funding levels based on ridership instead of on population. This extra money would allow CyRide to purchase two new buses a year.

The expected life span of a bus is 12 years, although most of CyRide’s fleet is more than 12 years old. Some of the buses are approaching 35 years old.

Another program that is seeing the budgetary knife is the biodiesel program. Biodiesel, which is derived from soybeans, offers lower emissions of carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxides and particulates. The fuel is roughly 7 cents per gallon more than conventional diesel. CyRide tried it last spring, but budget concerns have halted the program.