Article: Uni students travel for free

[ozbob]

From the Gympie Times click here!

Uni students travel for free

Uni students travel for free

6th February 2012

GYMPIE University of the Sunshine Coast students will now be able to hop on a free bus to get to campus.

The buses and express shuttle buses will take students from Gympie, Cooroy and North Lakes this semester.

USC trialled a free bus service for Noosa students last semester and has now decided to extend the trial to other fast-growing areas in neighbouring regions.

The once-daily services from Noosa (via Coolum), Gympie (via Cooroy) and North Lakes (via Caboolture) are set to begin on Monday February 20. Each bus will arrive at the University campus at Sippy Downs about 7.45am each week day of semester and depart USC about 5.10pm.

USC's Vice-Chancellor Professor Greg Hill said the new bus services were part of the University's goal to encourage greater use of more sustainable transport options.

"We are putting on these new bus services to support our students from Gympie and Moreton Bay council areas where an increasing number of our students are from," he said.

"We are the only full-service university campus in the region, with 8,000 students, and we want to help our students to get here."

The Gympie bus will start outside the Centro Shopping Centre (corner Excelsior Road and Perseverance Street) at 6.30am and stop once at Cooroy (corner Elm and Opal Streets) on its way to USC. The North Lakes service will begin outside the Westfield North Lakes Shopping Centre (Corner North Lakes Drive and The Corso, Stop B) at 6.35am, stopping once at the Caboolture Railway Station (Stop E).

USC also plans to fund new direct TransLink bus services from Sippy Downs to Caloundra (route 607) and Nambour (route 636) at 9pm each week night of semester. Direct services to these centres currently finish about 6pm, with passengers having to travel via Maroochydore after that time.

The University's innovative U-pass scheme, which has already provided thousands of students with subsidised bus travel, is set to continue this semester.

The scheme is a joint initiative of USC, the Sunshine Coast Council and TransLink.

For the shuttle bus timetables and more details about USC's sustainable transport efforts, go to the USC website at www.usc.edu.au/transport.

[Arnz]

Services will be operated by Sunbus through the recently acquired Toyota Coasters (from the Townsville/Hermit Park operation).  The Toyota's are a dedicated sub-fleet that won't be used on TransLink runs.

[Fares_Fair]

This is a great initiative from the University.   

Regards,
Fares_Fair.