Providing better public transportation for students and drawing more students to downtown Muncie are a couple of goals for the city's first Mayor's Commission for Ball State Student Relations.
The commission was designed earlier this year to connect Ball State University students and Muncie officials by bringing together Mayor Dan Canan, Student Government Association President Steve Geraci and other student leaders and members of campus organizations.
Senior Matthew Moorhead, member of Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity, said Friday that city transportation would make it possible for more students to visit bars in downtown Muncie on weekends instead of simply frequenting those in the Village.
"With the whole transportation issue, it's a hassle," Moorhead said. "I would love to go down there and interact with the community, but I don't know how I can without sacrificing safety."
Providing a free trolley system or other transportation service for students on weekends would not be an issue for the city, Canan said.
"When there is an event that might have an appeal to Ball State students, we want to get you down there, and we want to get you safely back home," Canan said.
Geraci said he also proposed an additional bus route for off-campus students during the summer to Muncie Indiana Transit System General Manager Larry King and other executive board members. The 10-minute route would serve students who live in the Neely Avenue neighborhoods, beginning at Reserve Street and University Avenue and including Linden and Rex streets, as well as Virginia, Neely and McKinley avenues.
Ball State used to have an east-west shuttle route on University and Riverside avenues in the 1970s, but students who live east or west of McKinley Avenue no longer have this option, Geraci said. The university wants to maintain control of the current north-south route even though it would save more than $10 million over three and a half years if the MITS buses gradually took it over, Geraci said.
Geraci said he and SGA will try to help raise the $25,000 MITS wants to take over the university's shuttle route. MITS might eventually be able to subsidize itself without SGA's help, as it receives government funding based on its ridership, Geraci said.
"I have had quite a few very productive conversations with MITS," Geraci said. "I have not had very productive conversations with Ball State's side of things."
Junior Gennie Nguyen, member of the Asian-American Student Association and several other groups, said she does not even use the city's bus system because she, like many students, simply doesn't know the route. Canan suggested a route that serves students only and provides transportation from such apartment complexes as Windermere Place, which currently doesn't receive service from Ball State's shuttle system.
"Let's find a route that serves strictly Ball State students and drops you off in campus and takes you back," Canan said.
Canan said students also have had safety concerns regarding the lack of sidewalks in the Neely neighborhood, which would cost about $950,000 to $1 million about six to eight years from now.
"We know it's terribly dangerous over there," Canan said. "It's worse during the winter time and at night."
Geraci said the broken stoplight located on University Avenue between the L.A. Pittenger Student Center and the Administration Building has also posed problems for students, who say they have almost been hit several times while trying to cross the street. The stoplight, which now acts as a caution light, functioned correctly last semester. Neither the city nor the university have agreed to fix it, Canan said.
The city has proposed constructing a median from Talley to McKinley avenues so as to make crossing the street safer, Canan said.
"As I understand it, it's something they want to do fairly quickly," he said.
The commission also discussed ways to get students past the chain restaurants on McGalliard Road to other city restaurants such as White River Landing and Mezzaluna, as well as to downtown entertainment and cultural events. Drawing more Muncie residents to Ball State games, or having local high school games at the university's stadium, would also help foster a relationship between students and citizens, Canan said.
"I think we have a lot of events," Canan said. "We communicate them well in the city; we just don't communicate them [to students]."
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