With the start of the semester, students experience issues from delays to overcrowding on Bobcat Shuttle services as routes undergo new updates.
On Aug. 19, the Finance and Support Services Department sent out an email announcing route changes, bus stop additions and other updates to TXST transportation services for fall 2025.
Rod Gonzales, TXST transit manager, said the bus route alterations were decided through intensive review of past ridership and overall student population numbers.
“Last year, [TXST] had a record number and this year we had a bigger record number,” Gonzales said. “So last year, we had a lot of people that decided, ‘I don’t want to take an eight o’clock class and so they took 10 or 11 or 12 o’clock classes and so we’re like based on history, this is the movement.”
The shift of last year’s freshmen living off-campus this semester caused a shift in the route predictions this semester.
“We predicted incorrectly, kind of incorrectly, not 100% incorrectly, but there was some stuff that we were like ‘ Yeah, that’s gonna happen, that’s gonna happen,” Gonzales said. “We don’t solely use the technology, we actually go out there, my supervisor and I, and we start reading people movement or traffic patterns and people patterns, and so we see all this [traffic].”
Lindley Ringgold, computer science senior, said with her bus stop getting added to a different route this semester, buses will arrive at her stop already full, causing her to wait for the next available bus.
“I saw an email about it, and I looked and I didn’t even notice, I literally looked at the email, but I didn’t recognize that my stop had changed,” Ringgold said.
Some of the new route stops include the Meadows Center and Post at Uhland in the Post Road route and the Rec Center and Bexar Hall in the West Loop route.
Other changes Finance and Support Services Department announced include the addition of eleven new buses including four 60’ “bendy” buses.
Gonzales said more updates to the bus routes have continued as they have received feedback from the student population since the beginning of the semester.
“We listen to our students when they call and say, ‘Hey, this is what needs to be done, this is what needs to be done,’ We’re like, perfect,” Gonzales said. “On route 22, we did some changes and we added more service for [students] because we heard y’all say, ‘Hey, we need more.”
Macie Casson, human development and family sciences graduate student, said during her freshman year, she utilized the Campus Loop Route the most, but with the new changes her usual route has become longer and confusing.
Casson said since the route changes, she leaves for her bus stop an hour before her classes start.
“I live close to the Quad Bus Loop, and all my classes are in the Family Consumer Sciences Building, so it’s kind of complicated now that they split up the Campus Loop,” Casson said. “I have to take the Campus Loop from the Quad Bus Loop to LBJ, and then take the West Loop Bus from LBJ to the Rec.”
Ringgold said she has found the wait times have decreased in comparison to the first week of classes, but still experiences buses being full in the morning.
“Yesterday, I was able to get on the first bus at 7:22 a.m. or 7:23 a.m., and then I was still standing though, and we were still packed in,” Ringgold said. “But it wasn’t like I can feel the people’s breath on my neck.”
To avoid issues, Gonzales recommends students use the bus tracking app PassioGO!, consider alternative bus routes and pay attention to the available bus signage.
“Don’t be scared to try something new and use the resources that [students] have, all the buses that they have.” Gonzales said.
