UND-to-bars test run expands

December 31, 2007

The test run of a bus route connecting the UND neighborhood and the downtown Grand Forks bar and restaurant scene is expected to be expanded.

The route ran two weekends in December and will return for its scheduled runs Jan. 17-19 and Jan. 24-26 after school starts again. The service may start a week earlier, as well, also including the weekend of Jan. 10-12.

But Michael Rocks-Macqueen, the president of Club Express, the company operating the shuttle service, said he expects the test run will be extended to the end of the semester in May.

Downtown bar owners partially subsidize the test route, with the rest paid for by fees charged to ride it ($5 for an all-night pass, $3 for a one-way trip). The test runs will be evaluated by bar owners to see whether the effort is deemed worthwhile to continue to fund it.

Rocks-Macqueen said the first two weekends of the bus route were successful, attracting about 130 riders the first weekend and about 90 the second weekend, which was cut short when he decided not to run Saturday after finals were concluded a day earlier.

“I've heard nothing but good comments on it,” Rocks-Macqueen said. “It's already starting to catch on. I've had a few people who said, ‘I'm going to take this every weekend.' ”

Rocks-Macqueen said current ridership is enough to keep the route going, but he said he is aiming to average 100 riders a night in order to continue operating the route in the long term.

The route runs from 10 p.m. to 2:30 a.m. Thursday through Saturday nights, going back and forth all night between campus and downtown with pickups every half an hour at each stop. It runs from the downtown bars down University Avenue, with stops at the UND Memorial Union and at apartments on 42nd Street and Sixth Avenue.

The bus stops downtown at Joe Black's Bar & Grill, Gilly's, O'Really's Irish Pub, Sledster's Food & Brew, Bonzer's and Level 10 - the establishments funding the test run.

Rocks-Macqueen said he plans to place beacon lights in the bars that can be remotely turned on by the driver or a bouncer on the bus, alerting patrons that the bus is outside so they don't need to wait outside in the cold for it to arrive.

This origional article can be found at http://www.grandforksherald.com/articles/index.cfm?
id=62270&section=Business.