To the Editor:

Attention GSB, City of Ames, Ames Transit Board and all others:

I have been following the debate lately that ISU student fees would have to be raised or Cy-Ride would have to cut service due to FTA budget cuts. I am sympathetic to the problems that this situation makes to Cy-Ride, but some things can be done besides the two presented statements above.

One real quick and easy way to make some money up quick is to charge people who pick up the Orange route at the Iowa State Center.

I am aware of current policies concerning that area when I was on the Transportation Advisory Council last year. The university wanted to keep cars off campus, so they gave an incentive that anyone could park free all day at the Iowa State Center and take Cy-Ride free to campus.

I think that giving free parking at the Iowa State Center is incentive enough to go there and take the bus. The bus will still get enough riders even if it charges the 35 cents that everyone else must pay. That will take care of some of the financial shortfalls there.

I am not crazy to the point where I think that solution alone will keep Cy-Ride in the black. My main purpose of writing this letter is to make sure that everyone titled at the top of this [letter] is aware of another large source of income, not mentioned yet. I am speaking of the money that will be received from the Ames Special Census. This summer, while interning for the City of West Des Moines, Iworked on a special census that they were conducting. West Des Moines has grown since the 1990 census by approximately 5,000-plus people. As a result, it will receive somewhere in the neighborhood of $400,000-plus a year at least until 2000.

Ames is larger than West Des Moines, but has not grown quite as much. However, it should still receive a substantial amount of money that could replace a large portion, if not all of the money needed to keep Cy-Ride service at the levels it is today.

I think the student body and the City of Ames should consider this option, as at least a partial alternative to cutting and raising student fees.

Edward R. Sherman

Student

Community and Regional Planning