By: Kristin Miller
Approximately 45-60 students use the Athens Farmers Market fresh food bus every Saturday – excluding game days – according to UGA Campus Transit manager Ron Hamlin. Market manager Jan Kozak thinks the number of riders would increase if the bus ran on game days.
“That’s been a situation where you provide a service to the community and then when it’s not consistent, folks don’t know when to expect it,” Kozak said.
Hamlin is hesitant to expand the bus schedule partially due to increased traffic. Road closures would require the bus route to be remapped, which would affect the length of time of the circuit. Game days in Athens also require UGA transit to use all of its resources on the game.
“On a game day Saturday we’re running pretty much everything we have on our yard,” Hamlin said. “It’s just very difficult for us to add any more service that’s not game related at this point in time.”
Although the fresh food bus schedule will remain the same this year, Hamlin said making changes to the schedule for next year is a possibility.
“We’ll certainly keep that opportunity and option open for the future, but right now it’s just not feasible for us to be able to do that,” he said.
