Following December’s fatal loop bus crash that killed beloved community member and bus driver Dan Stevenson, students were finally able to address administrators last Friday. It took months of planning, preparation, and one rescheduled meeting to finally get Transportation and Parking Services (TAPS) leadership on a Zoom call.
The Feb. 2 meeting was organized by the Student Union Assembly (SUA) to discuss the growing safety and reliability concerns associated with on campus transportation. In attendance were TAPS Executive Director Dan Henderson, the Division of Finance, Operations, and Administration’s Vice Chancellor Clement Stokes, and Chief Financial Officer Ed Reiskin.
“In times of crisis and mourning, are you here to implement action, or gaze into the pixels of your screen and then shut off your laptop, go back to your couch, and sit and do nothing?” student Nareh Hamo asked the TAPS administration during public comment.
TAPS administrators’ faces were projected on the two screens in Classroom Unit 2 to an audience of over 100 in-person attendees, with more than 100 Zoom participants. In the three-hour town hall, many students made public comments expressing frustration, fear, and disappointment to TAPS leadership.
Kyle Vergara, a student representative, was one of many students to read a statement expressing the student body’s concerns and the need for reliable on-campus transportation.
The town hall was planned for Jan. 29. However, three days before the scheduled meeting, TAPS informed the SUA that they would not be attending the meeting as they had not received questions in time to prepare. Jan. 29 transitioned to part one of the town hall where students voiced their concerns and prepared for part two with administration on Feb. 2.
On Jan. 27, SUA stated on their Instagram the split was a result of TAPS’s failure to not “promptly address the student body’s concerns.”
SUA opened the meeting and announced due to the ongoing investigation, public comments addressing the loop bus crash could not be answered yet.
Vice Chancellor Ed Reiskin of UC Santa Cruz emailed the student body on Feb. 1 about the California Highway Patrol (CHP) investigation of campus buses. Their investigation concluded that the campus transit operations meet the classification of “Imminent Danger to Public Safety as per CVC 34505.7(a)(1) since greater than 50 percent of the regulated equipment sample was placed Out-Of-Service.”
Five out of the nine vehicles inspected were placed Out-Of-Service, four of which had “brakes out of adjustment.” They also discovered an in-route driver who was improperly licensed.
Even before the crash that prompted CHP’s investigation, student concern about the safety of on-campus transportation was growing. On Nov. 13 a loop bus caught on fire, which UC Santa Cruz Lead Designated Fire Marshal Nick Otis reported was attributed to mechanical failure.
“I’ve just been walking everywhere […] for fear of my safety,” said Stephanie Sanchez-Toscano, SUA’s Vice President of Academic Affairs, who co-hosted the town hall.
Town hall attendees give a round of applause to student speakers, while others wait in line to participate in public comment.
Nayelli Flores, a second-year student, read a series of anonymous student submissions collected by community organization, Gabriela Santa Cruz. One student reported they were accidentally hit in the face on an overcrowded bus. Another student response read, “Many people are denied entry to the buses because it is so tight […] we feel like cattle.”
Fourth-year Farah Garcia demanded TAPS address student concerns.
“You have a position of power and responsibility to fulfill your job and transform the system that still operates on outdated and unfulfilling practices,” Garcia said. “Why are you incentivizing your workers to give punitive tickets instead of working towards accommodating all students?”
Multiple students questioned the raised ticket prices. Dan Henderson responded that while they were recently raised, they still fall in the “mid-range” among UCs and the city of Santa Cruz.
“There was an extremely strong outcry for increased parking enforcement,” Henderson added. Members of the audience scoffed at this statement.
Matthew Morimoto, a member of the Student Union Governance Board (SUGB), described SUGB’s exhausting relationship with TAPS.
“We’ve had meetings with them in the past, and yet they seem to be dismissive,” Morimoto said. “I feel like they just roll their eyes and try to look away from us.”
In a follow up email to City on a Hill Press, Assistant Vice Chancellor of University RelationsScott Hernandez-Jason, described the campus’s plan to address student concerns. “Based on the feedback we’ve received about the TAPS budget, we have committed to developing a more understandable format of the budget that we will broadly share, including on the TAPS website,” he said. “We will also continue to strive to be responsive to student questions and concerns.”
SUA president Airielle Silva, who facilitated the conversation, urged TAPS to listen to student concerns with empathy and use their frustration to prompt change. She noted that emotions are high.
“This is just one piece of the puzzle of the many issues that we face here,” Silva said. “We’re in a state of emergency, both housing, dining, transportation, and our livelihoods on this campus.”
